Thieves steal 4 Renoir paintings from French Riviera museum, 2 still missing

PARIS (AP) — Thieves stole four valuable Renoir paintings Tuesday from a small museum on the French Riviera, but abandoned two of them as they fled, the local mayor said. Police are searching for the perpetrators.

A group of “well-equipped” and “well-informed” thieves entered the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer via the garden, the town’s mayor, Bryan Masson, told reporters at the scene.

They sliced through a fence with an electric knife or saw, entered the museum through the ground floor, and then cut the clips securing the artwork frames, Masson said in remarks carried by local broadcaster Ici Azur.

The museum’s alarm system went off at 5:48 a.m. local time, and police arrived five minutes later, the mayor said. Their swift arrival “forced...