A Chinese woman has been arrested and charged over the theft of gold from the Natural History Museum in Paris, in one of several recent high-profile break-ins targeting French cultural institutions, a prosecutor said on Tuesday.

A 24-year-old Chinese woman was arrested in Barcelona on September 30 over the Natural History Museum break-in and theft of gold worth more than US$1 million, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said.

The suspect was handed over to French authorities on October 13 and was charged with theft and criminal conspiracy and put in provisional detention the same day.

At the time of her arrest, she was trying to dispose of nearly 1kg (2.2 pounds) of melted gold pieces, the prosecutor said, without providing more details.