French police have arrested five people as part of the investigation into the theft in September of two Renoir paintings from a museum in southern France, a source close to the probe told AFP Wednesday. Prosecutors in Marseille, who are leading the investigation, declined to comment, but the Nice Matin newspaper said those arrested included the two suspected burglars who seized the paintings from the museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer. The suspects cut through a fence to enter the museum's tree-lined grounds, smashed a window to get inside, and used an electric saw to cut through the frame mountings, the local mayor said at the time of the robbery in early September. The thieves made off with two Renoir paintings, after abandoning two others as they fled. The regional daily newspaper, which first broke the news of the arrests, said that the whereabouts of the two missing paintings were not immediately known. The heist was the latest in a string of such robberies -- including the daylight theft last year of crown jewelry valued at around $100 million from the Louvre in Paris -- and reignited concerns about the protection of France's cultural heritage. The four suspected Louvre robbers have been arrested, but the jewels they are accused of grabbing in the seven-minute heist have still not been found.
