The secret high-tech art lab beneath Paris' streets

Scientists work in the labs of the Centre for Research and Restoration of Museums of France (C2RMF) in Paris. Photo: AFP

It looks like the lair of a Bond villain: behind armoured doors, buried underground below the Louvre in Paris, lies one of the most high-tech art labs in the world.

Across three floors and nearly 6,000sq m, the Centre for Research and Restoration of Museums of France (C2RMF) includes its own particle accelerator called AGLAE, and is bustling with radiologists, chemists, geologists, metallurgists, archaeologists and engineers.