A Paris court sentenced this Thursday the butler of the Élysée Palace to two years in prison and a fine of 10,000 euros for stealing part of the official tableware of the presidential residence between 2023 and 2025. Since he has no prior convictions, he will only have to serve one year of the two-year sentence, which he will do under house arrest and with an electronic bracelet. The court found him guilty of theft of objects registered as national heritage.
Additionally, two other men were convicted for complicity. One of them is an antique dealer, the butler’s partner, who was responsible for selling the stolen pieces and worked at the Louvre Museum. He was sentenced to two years in prison, although he will only have to serve eight months, also with an electronic bracelet. The other involved party is the collector who bought most of the porcelain.
The trial was held on February 26, and the sentences were lighter than what the prosecution had requested. Only the main convicted, Thomas G., was banned from attending auctions.
The events date back to 2023. During that period, Thomas G. was in charge of caring for the presidential porcelain used for receptions and gala dinners hosted by President Emmanuel Macron. His job was to set the tables before dinners with these valuable tableware and cutlery.
The butler began removing some of this porcelain “due to financial problems,” he declared before the court. At first, he did so without anyone noticing, but later some of his superiors realized that pieces were missing from the collection. In the fall of 2025, they alerted the police. The tableware of the Élysée Palace belongs to the prestigious national factory of Sèvres, created under the reign of Louis XV, and is part of the national heritage. They are, therefore, marked and registered in an inventory, making them easily traceable. At the same time, the factory also reported having seen some of these pieces for sale on the Vinted platform.
The president of the Paris correctional court highlighted this Thursday during the reading of the verdict the seriousness of the crime, due to its repetition and the “financial and heritage value” of the stolen objects. The Sèvres factory, which appeared in the trial as a private plaintiff, estimates that the stolen pieces are worth 317,000 euros. Most have been recovered.
During his testimony at the trial, Thomas G. stated that his partner and he created a profile on Vinted to sell some objects, not with the intention of getting rich, but because they were overwhelmed by their financial situation. He said he was carried away seeing “the ease of access” to these pieces. The three involved have admitted the facts but denied having plotted a network. The antique dealer, the palace employee’s partner, told the court that at first he did not know the pieces were stolen. “I thought they had been given to him by his bosses,” he said.
The third involved, the collector who bought part of the loot, declared that he realized it too late. It happened when he was preparing an exhibition of his porcelain collection, including some of the stolen pieces, at the Henry II Pavilion in Villers-Cotterêts, a 16th-century castle located in northern France. The exhibition did not take place. He bought between 70 and 80 pieces for a value of 150,000 euros.
The case was uncovered shortly after the high-profile theft of the French Crown jewels at the Louvre Museum, where the partner of the main convicted worked as a security guard.
