We tend to avoid fuelling the “e-scooters enable crime” argument in these parts, but this particular story is just too colourful to overlook. Two suspects have been arrested after a thief took jewels worth between £1.7m and £2.55m from a shop in Paris, fleeing on an e-scooter while onlookers were distracted by actor Jean-Claude Van Damme visiting a nearby opticians.

The Guardian reports that early on Tuesday evening, a grey-haired man in a suit and tie arrived at Chaumet jewellers, near the Champ-Elysees.

He pretended to be a customer and asked to see various items of jewellery. He then pulled either a knife or a gun, depending on which report you read, before bundling everything into a bag and scarpering on an e-scooter.

Potential witnesses at a nearby café told Le Parisien they had seen and heard nothing with many distracted by Jean-Claude Van Damme visiting the opticians.

Two men from Montenegro, aged 44 and 54, were arrested in a motorway layby in Moselle in eastern France on Wednesday morning. They had been travelling on a coach to Serbia.

Officers said a “substantial part” of the jewels had been recovered.