French Court Upholds Charges Against Former Louvre Director in Antiquities Trafficking Case

This week, a French appeals court upheld the charges against Jean-Luc Martinez, the former president and director of the Louvre in Paris, for his alleged complicity in the trafficking of antiquities from Egypt.  

Martinez, who led the Louvre from 2013 to 2021, was charged in May for “complicity in fraud,” money laundering, and “facilitating” the purchase of artifacts linked to a vast trafficking ring that has been the target of a years-long police inquiry. French authorities suspect that the network of smugglers and their accomplices have sold art and relics to museums and galleries worldwide, including the Louvre’s Abu Dhabi outpost between 2014 and 2017. 

Martinez’s former colleague, the curator and archaeologist Jean-Francois Charnier, was also charged for his suspected involvement in the operation. Both are expected to appeal the ruling in France’s supreme court, per Le Monde. 

When Martinez and Charnier were first charged last year, the art community in Paris and beyond was stunned. Martinez, France’s current official ambassador for international cooperation on cultural heritage issue, had dedicated his recent career to the preservation of art in conflict zones and had authored a report that France presented to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization that detailed new strategies for deterring looting. 

In November 2022, the public prosecutor requested to have the charges against Martinez dismissed following a re-examination of the evidence against him. The prosecutor’s decision seemed to signal that Martinez, a trained archeologist, had been wrongfully implicated in the case. According to the French legal system, an indictment does not ensure the defendant will stand trial, and charges can be overturned by a special magistrate at any point in the investigation.

According to Le Monde, in 2019, police grew suspicious of the provenance of a stone stele depicting the pharaoh Tutankhamen that was acquired for the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which was not yet open. In his capacity as head of the Louvre, Martinez chaired a joint governmental commission whose approval is needed for the acquisition of an object for the museum.  

Police reportedly suspected Martinez of signing off on several purchases, despite the evidence that they had been looted, including allegedly fraudulent certificates of provenance and fake export licenses that accompanied the relics.

Martinez’s lawyer, Francois Artuphel, told Le Monde that the court’s decision to uphold charges “is unfounded” and that he and his client have “no doubt that the next step in the procedure will re-establish this injustice.”