PARIS — In a minutes-long strike Sunday inside the world’s most-visited museum, thieves rode a basket lift up the Louvre ’s facade, forced a window, smashed display cases and fled with priceless Napoleonic jewels, officials said.

The daylight heist about 30 minutes after opening, with visitors already inside, was among the highest-profile museum thefts in living memory and comes as staff complained that crowding and thin staffing are straining security.

The theft unfolded just 270 yards from the Mona Lisa , in what Culture Minister Rachida Dati described as a professional “four-minute operation.”

One object, the emerald-set imperial crown of Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugénie, containing more than 1,300 diamonds, was later found outside the museum, French authorities said. It was

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