Louis Vuitton in Lille: Repeated Burglaries Raise Security Concerns

Wednesday morning, for the second time in five months, the Louis Vuitton store, located in the historic center of Lille, suffered a ramming car burglary, we learned from a police source, confirming information from the Voice of the North. Shortly before 6 a.m., “a vehicle got stuck in the facade”, allowing thieves to seize goods, the same source said, without further information immediately on the amount of the harm.

A ram-breaker had targeted the same shop, last January, for damage then qualified as “considerable” by the Lille prosecutor’s office, most of the goods having been stolen.

Three breakages in six years

Each time, it was the central door that was broken down, the windows being unbreakable, explained to AFP the mayor of Lille, Martine Aubry, who went to the scene in the morning. The City, which had, at the end of the first ram-break, had two additional studs placed on the sidewalk, will again add more, to create “an impassable line”, indicated the elected official.

At the same time, the management is examining two technical solutions to better barricade the store, with a grid or a partition inside the store, she said. The Buildings of France had refused to the direction the installation of an external grid on a classified facade. Installed in the former premises of the restaurant l’Huitrière, closed in 2016, the burglarized shop, of around 500 m2, had been inaugurated in April 2022. At its previous address, still in Old Lille, Louis Vuitton had made the object of a first burglary in 2017.