Louvre heist is part of a treasure smash-and-grab pattern

SLAP IN THE FACE'

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A LADDER truck, an angle-grinder, a maxi-scooter and seven minutes. That appears to be all it took for thieves to nab priceless jewellery from the Louvre, the world’s most-visited museum.

The vulnerability of this cornerstone of French soft power adds to the country’s sense of malaise, and fingers are being pointed over apparent security flaws.

But it speaks to something much broader, too — criminals’ boundless hunger for gold and other precious metals and gems, not fine art, as the value of these commodities soars.

Museum raids are becoming ever more audacious as the gold price has doubled in a year — and jumped tenfold in two decades.

A stampede of investors fleeing erstwhile safe assets such as government bonds is making real stuff you can keep in safes or vaults hugely desirable.

The smash and grabbers are taking note. Just last month thieves used a blow torch and an angle-grinder to steal €600 000 (R12.1 million) worth of gold nuggets from the Paris Natural History Museum.

And back in November, four masked men brazenly smashed display cases in the Cognacq-Jay Museum in the French capital and made off with seven 18th-century snuff boxes.