A CHAINSAW-wielding gang has stormed the Louvre and stolen priceless jewellery worth millions in a brazen seven-minute raid.

The smash-and-grab heist saw “highly organised” thieves scale the side of the world-famous museum using a ladder mounted on a flat-bed truck before cutting through a window with a disc cutter.

The trio struck in broad daylight soon after 9am on Sunday, breaking into a gallery that houses some of France’s most precious treasures and escaping with nine glittering pieces from the Napoleon and Empress Joséphine collection.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez branded the lightning-fast theft a “major robbery”, revealing it lasted just seven minutes.

He said the thieves “entered from outside with a cherry picker” and made off with “priceless jewellery”.

Among the treasures stolen was the famed Eugénie Crown — a dazzling Second Empire piece created in 1855 and encrusted with thousands of diamonds and emeralds.

Worn by Empress Eugénie de Montijo, wife of Napoleon III, the crown was found tossed below a Louvre window and shattered in pieces as the gang made their escape.

Tourists fled in panic from the Louvre after the dramatic robbery forced the sudden closure of the world’s most visited museum.

France’s Culture Minister Rachida Dati announced on X: “A robbery took place this morning at the opening of the @MuseeLouvre.

“No injuries to report. I am on site alongside the museum teams and the police. Investigations underway.”

The museum confirmed an unscheduled full-day closure “for exceptional reasons”.

Investigators believe three suspects were involved in total, with two entering the building while one remained outside as lookout.

The gang are thought to have been “highly organised” and equipped with power tools, including chainsaws, to smash their way into the gallery.

Local media reported the thieves targeted the Napoleon and Empress Joséphine jewellery collection, stealing nine pieces, including a necklace, brooch and tiara.

They then fled on a TMax scooter towards the A6 motorway.

Officers were later seen inspecting the giant ladder, which the thieves had driven to the scene on the back of a flat-bed truck and left propped against the historic stone walls after fleeing with their haul.

Investigators believe the robbers were possibly working on commission.

Detectives from the Banditism Repression Brigade (BRB) of the Judicial Police are leading the investigation, alongside the Central Office for Combating Trafficking in Cultural Property.

Nuñez said CCTV footage is being studied and “it’s not impossible that the perpetrators are foreigners.”

Sources believe the haul may never reach the black market.

Those behind such high-value thefts often act on the orders of wealthy collectors, meaning the pieces are likely to be hidden away and privately enjoyed by the criminal mastermind who commissioned the raid.

The stolen collection, built after Napoleon and Joséphine were crowned Emperor and Empress in 1804, is among the most opulent in French history.

Some pieces were looted from royalty during the French Revolution, while others were seized from across the Napoleonic Empire.

Shocked visitors described scenes of confusion and chaos as news of the robbery spread.

One tourist told The Sun: “We got to the plaza around 10am and there were thousands of people queuing all the way around. By about 10.30 staff started telling us the Louvre was closed for the day because someone had tried to steal something inside.

“Ten minutes later more police turned up and they began evacuating everyone — it got pretty chaotic.

“People were still trying to take selfies as police pushed them out, and there were military on the scene and more than a dozen police vehicles. I even saw what looked like detectives heading inside.”

Another British visitor, 38, added: “It was very exciting being on the scene when the drama happened, like something out of The Da Vinci Code!

“Almost made up for the disappointment of not being able to go in, as we’re leaving tomorrow.

“For about half an hour there were sirens going off all around the building and nobody knew what was going on. It definitely adds a bit of drama to the holiday we can tell people about in the future!”

Police units swarmed the area as thousands of visitors were evacuated and told to stay away.

The investigation, now underway, will seek to determine how criminals breached one of the most secure cultural sites in Europe.

The Louvre is a global symbol of French culture and home to masterpieces including the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo.

The most visited museum in the world, it draws around 8 to 9 million visitors each year.

It also holds around 380,000 objects, with more than 35,000 on display.

The Louvre’s collection is estimated to be worth tens of billions of pounds, making it one of the most heavily guarded museums on earth.

This latest raid is far from the first time Paris has been rocked by high-end art thefts — including at the Louvre itself.

The most infamous came in 1911, when Leonardo da Vinci’s 16th-century Mona Lisa was stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, a museum employee who hid in a cupboard overnight to take the painting.

It was recovered two years later when he tried to sell it to an antiques dealer in Florence.

Despite repeated promises by authorities to tighten security, thieves continue to target the city’s cultural treasures.

In November 2024, axe-wielding robbers struck the Musée Cognacq-Jay in broad daylight, stealing seven prized snuffboxes — including two loaned by the British Crown — in a raid that triggered a £3 million insurance payout to the Royal Collection Trust.

And in 2010, five masterpieces by Picasso and Matisse worth nearly £100 million vanished from the Paris Museum of Modern Art.

Three men were eventually jailed in 2017 for up to eight years over the spectacular burglary.