Last week, three individuals involved in this case were arrested. Unlike the participants in the Louvre robbery, the detainees turned out to be respectable "people from the system" rather than criminal elements. They did not hide their actions and confessed to the crime, and they are expected to face trial early next year.
At the Élysée Palace, there is a position called maitre d'hotel-argentier, responsible for the storage of presidential silver and adherence to strict protocol during official receptions. Since 2020, this role had been performed by Thomas M., a meticulous and methodical worker who had organized tables for state lunches and dinners for five years, and as it turned out, had secretly been taking dishes.
He was taking home plates, cups, and saucers, and then, together with antique dealer Damien G., was looking for buyers for the stolen items.
Initially, Thomas posted advertisements online, and later found a regular client in the form of Ghislen M., an avid porcelain collector. Starting in 2024, he began acquiring less valuable items from the palace employee, and then moved on to rarer pieces.
Journalists from Le Figaro discovered that Ghislen M. had been working as a curator at the Louvre since November 2023. On the day, October 20, when the robbery of eight crown jewels occurred, he was speaking at a general meeting of the museum, criticizing the management for their detachment from reality, even receiving applause from colleagues. They were shocked to learn that this 30-year-old aesthetic, who shared photos of himself in front of works of art on social media, was also buying stolen items.
Ghislen was proud of his collections and even organized an exhibition of 500 items of "royal and imperial Sèvres" at the historical museum of the city of Viller-Cotterêts from December 14 to January 11. The exhibition organizers were stunned to learn of his arrest and confirmed that they had no suspicion of the illegal origin of the exhibits, leading to the immediate closure of the exhibition. Ghislen's defense intends to use his passion for porcelain as a mitigating circumstance. The lawyer claims that he was not a buyer of stolen goods, but merely "lost in his passion".
The coordinated actions of the criminal group allowed them to remove dishes from the Élysée Palace month after month. Investigators believe that inventory records were tampered with. However, the security service noticed the disappearance of several items, which led to the initiation of an investigation.
Simultaneously with the thieves' activities, the police intensified their efforts, investigating suspicious connections among the employees of the presidential palace. During the arrests and searches, numerous items "washed" from the palace were found: both in the homes of Thomas and Damien in the Loire and in Ghislen M.'s apartment in Versailles.
Sèvres porcelain is of particular value. Although it may formally be worth thousands of euros per item, the stolen items from the palace would be impossible to sell on the legal antique market.
Items marked Palais de l'Elysée are not handled by official collectors or serious antique dealers, making the incident not only a crime but also absurd: why steal and buy what cannot be resold?
The damage from the theft is estimated in the tens of thousands of euros. Almost all the dishes have already been returned to the palace. The keeper of the service resigned back in November, and the curator at the Louvre has been banned from appearing in the museum. After the arrests and charges, all three are under judicial control.
The court proceedings have been postponed to February 2026, and the case is still ongoing, with investigators hoping for new discoveries. Journalists recall how in 2018, the Élysée Palace ordered new serving items worth half a million euros and express regret that such zealous "collectors" found themselves so quickly.
