New Delhi, Oct. 29 -- Paris police on Wednesday acknowledged major gaps in the Louvre's defences, turning this month's appalling daylight robbery into a national reckoning over how France protects its priceless cultural treasures.

The Chief of the Paris Police, Patrice Faure, informed the French Senate that ageing systems and slow implementation of necessary repairs had left the world's most-visited museum with critical security vulnerabilities.

"A technological step has not been taken," he said, noting parts of the video network are even still analog, producing lower-quality images that are slow to share in real time.

A long-promised overhaul-a $93 million project requiring roughly 60 kilometres of new cabling-"will not be finished be...