Thieves steal Renoir paintings from France museum

Thieves on Tuesday stole four Renoir paintings worth millions of dollars from a museum in southern France, but abandoned two as they fled, a mayor said.

The heist is the latest in a string of such robberies in France including the daylight theft last year of crown jewellery valued at around $100 million from the Louvre in Paris.

"The museum and police sirens forced the burglars to hurry, stealing only four works from the Renoir Museum out of the twelve the museum holds," said Bryan Masson, the mayor of the town of Cagnes-sur-Mer.

Of those four, two were "left behind in the gardens of the Renoir museum", added the far-right official, whose office earlier estimated the value of the stolen works at 9 million euros ($10 million).

The Renoir Museum, a half-hour drive from the southern city of Nice, lies in French impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir's last home before he died in 1919.

Its collection includes nine paintings by Renoir, according to its website.

It also includes several sculptures by him, as well as objects and furniture that belonged to the painter, such as his easel and wheelchair.