| Bad news comes in battalions, to paraphrase Jacques Chirac. France’s economy is in the doldrums, its political crisis is far from over and now its soft power has taken a battering after thieves brazenly broke into the Louvre and made off with €88 million worth of historic crown jewels. Unlike the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911 and that era’s fascination with the gentleman-burglar, there was nothing very glamorous about this raid. It was audaciously and embarrassingly simple – climb ladder, cut window, grab loot – and took place in broad daylight rather than under cover of night.  The balcony that allowed burglars to break a window on the first floor to enter the Louvre Museum in Paris. Photographer: Laurent Caron/AFP/Getty Images Nor was this likely the work of a moustache-twirling collector who is now admiring the tiara of Empress Eugenie and other jewels in private. It looks more like the latest in a series of increasingly daring museum heists over the past decade targeting gold and gems for re-sale rather than fine art. From the gold toilet ripped out of the UK’s Blenheim Palace to the gold helmet nabbed from the Dutch Drents Museum, soaring commodity prices have made museums everywhere a target – not just those in Paris. This is not to excuse the world’s most visited museum from its security failings. Louvre employees have warned of staff shortages in the past. And while it turns out the museum does have a camera monitoring its exterior, it just so happens it was pointing away from where the thieves were. The Louvre director’s subsequent call for a police station inside the museum is only one step short of asking for a stable door to be bolted after the horse’s escape. (Financial regulators will sympathize.) But the Louvre is also lucky: The country, if not the world, is focused on tracking down the miscreants and their stolen goods, assuming they haven’t already been broken down into harder-to-recognize and easier-to-sell pieces. It has also been earmarked for a lavish €800 million makeover. For other, smaller museums, this spate of robberies will likely exacerbate a trend of higher costs and declining footfall. It looks like problems will keep coming in batallions. France’s private sector unexpectedly contracted as wrangling over the budget prolonged fiscal uncertainty for Europe’s second-largest economy. Emmanuel Macron told EU leaders to consider using the bloc’s most powerful trade tool against China if they aren’t able to find a resolution to Beijing’s planned export controls on critical raw materials. Airbus SE, Thales SA and Leonardo SpA sealed a long-awaited agreement to merge their satellite operations and create a European joint venture that would compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Gucci owner Kering SA reported a smaller-than-expected sales decline shortly after the arrival of new Chief Executive Officer Luca de Meo. The company also agreed to sell its beauty division to L’Oreal SA in a €4 billion deal.  Luca de Meo Photographer: Benjamin Girette/Bloomberg Louvre jewel thieves face a tough sell on the black market, where priceless works of art are met with deep discounts. Worldline SA said a review following allegations it had turned a blind eye to fraud discovered “uneven” implementation of anti-financial-crime controls across the company. Monday: French 3Q total jobseekers data Tuesday: Reports from BNP Paribas, Amundi, Capgemini, Air Liquide, Danone Wednesday: Airbus report Thursday: Reports from SocGen, Credit Agricole, Axa, TotalEnergies, Remy Cointreau, Schneider Electric Friday: French preliminary October CPI inflation data; September PPIs Saturday: French October new car registrations from PFA France’s crown jewels are going up for auction this November – no, not the ones stolen from the Louvre. This piece is a unique diamond brooch once owned by Napoleon Bonaparte and offered as a spoil of war only three days after his defeat.  An old mine-cut diamond brooch or pendant owned by Emperor Napoleon I, circa 1810. | 
