Two men arrested over theft at Louvre

French police have arrested two suspects believed to have helped steal crown jewels worth an estimated €88m (£76m) from the Louvre museum in Paris, officials have said, a week after one of the country's most spectacular thefts in decades.

- Jon Henley

The Paris public prosecutor confirmed media reports yesterday that one man had been detained at about 10pm on Saturday at the capital's Charles de Gaulle airport by officers from the armed robberies and serious burglaries squad.

The prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, did not say how many arrests had been made nor whether any jewels had been recovered, but officials close to the investigation confirmed to French media that a second suspect had also been taken into custody in the Paris region.

Beccuau said she regretted the premature revelation of the arrests in media outlets, saying it “could only jeopardise the work of more than 100 investigators mobilised to recover the stolen jewels and apprehend all of the perpetrators".

She said it was too early to give further details but she would say more once the suspects' pre-charge custody period was over. Under French law, people suspected of committing serious crimes can be detained for up to 96 hours before being charged.

French media outlets said the man detained at the airport had been about to board a plane to Algeria. Paris Match said the second, who was arrested at about the same time in the Seine-Saint-Denis department near Paris, planned to travel to Mali.

Both suspects were reportedly in their 30s, known to police and had criminal records for robbery. Le Monde said they had been under observation "for some time" before being taken into custody on suspicion of "organised theft and criminal conspiracy".