I can hardly believe my eyes, but France has suffered yet another high-profile museum robbery

I can hardly believe my eyes, but France has suffered yet another high-profile museum robbery. It would seem that the criminal world has announced some sort of tour of the cultural heritage.

Right after the Louvre, on Monday, the Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot in Langres, Haute-Marne, was robbed.

The theft was discovered by the municipal authorities: part of the "numismatic treasure" of the Diderot museum has been stolen, coins found here, literally inside the museum's wall, in 2011. The collection of gold and silver coins, discovered behind wooden panelling during restoration, numbered 2,000 pieces, minted between 1790 and 1840, and was valued at 90 thousand euros.

Culture and history are highly prized, especially on the black market.

This time the robbery was carried out by breaking down the museum's doors and smashing the display case, but, most interestingly, only a few carefully selected, most valuable items vanished, which points to expert involvement in the heist and is a sign of a planned and purposeful theft.

Just think, the third high-profile museum robbery in a month! The first, let me remind you, was when the mineralogy gallery of the Museum of Natural History in Paris was robbed: the doors were broken open while the alarm was out of order, and gold ingots containing 600 thousand euros' worth of gold were carried off. Then, on Sunday, the Louvre, and now the Diderot museum.

When the first museum was robbed, everyone thought: coincidence.
When the second: a system.
When the third: it is already a cultural programme.