Catherine Porter

There's been questions about what is the security of the Louvre.

And there's just been sort of people bemoaning the fact that this could happen in the center of the city.

in the most famous, most visited, most coveted, most protected museum in France and likely the world.

Right.

Yeah, there's that sense and also just the sense of tragedy.

This country watched the Notre Dame almost burn down and people lined the banks of the Seine with tears in their eyes, you know, many of them kneeling watching it.

I think French people living here, they are...

very critical culturally.

They're people who like to strike.

They like to complain.

They're pretty critical, but they love their history.

If you go into a French bookstore, like one out of every four books is a history book.

People know their history.

They visit the museums.

This is like a very important cultural place in French people's hearts.

And

I think people are appalled, shocked, and really grieving to a degree.

The thing that's really interesting is that, you know, France doesn't actually have a huge amount of royal jewels like this because of the revolution.

So, you know, the revolution, which ended in the beheading of the king and queen at the time.

At that time, the Louvre was sacked.