The police are focusing on a single intruder who disappeared with five paintings from the likes of Picasso, Matisse and Modigliani. What kind of a person steals such pieces of art? Even worse, what kind of bottom dweller would think to buy them?"
This is a serious attack on the heritage of humanity," said Christophe Girard, deputy culture secretary at Paris city hall, standing on the steps of the museum amid a swarm of television cameras. Listing works by Georges Braque, Amedeo Modigliani and Fernard Léger, Bertrand Delanoe, the city's mayor, urged that everything be done "to recover these masterpieces".
Girard said it remained unclear whether the thief, who removed the paintings from their frames and rolled them up to so that they could be carried away easily, had been acting alone or with a team.
Sources pointed out that if the thief had had people waiting for him, he would have been able to make a speedy getaway, thanks to the museum's proximity to the fast-moving traffic of roads running along the side of the Seine.
