Two stolen Renoir paintings recovered in France; six arrested

Two Renoir paintings stolen from a museum in southern France last month have been found, and six people arrested, local authorities said on Friday.

The mayor of Cagnes-sur-Mer, the town that hosts the Renoir Museum, Bryan Masson, issued a statement praising investigators who tracked down the paintings and suspects.

"These two paintings are not simply works of art. They are part of our city's history, our heritage," Mr Masson said.

The statement did not elaborate on how the paintings were tracked down.

The two missing paintings were Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano and Young Woman at the Well.

The thieves sliced through a fence, climbed through a window and initially stole four valuable Renoir paintings in the heist last month, but abandoned two of the artworks as they fled, authorities said.

The whole operation took less than 3 minutes and targeted the most valuable works in the Renoir Museum in the town of Cagnes-sur-Mer, the regional prosecutor’s office said.

Investigators launched a national search for the perpetrators.

The theft conjured up painful memories of the spectacular heist of crown jewels at the Louvre Museum in Paris last year and revived calls for better security and better funding for the many cultural sites large and small that dot France’s landscape.