A former member of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology of Cairo, she has been a curator and director of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities of the Louvre Museum since May 2007.
After studying history, Andreu specialized in Egyptology (hieroglyphs, hieratic, Coptic) and produced a thesis on the law and order in Ancient Egypt at Sorbonne in 1978 under the direction of Professor Jean Leclant.
Teaching Assistant at the Louvre's Egyptian department in 1982, she returned as design engineer in 1991 after a stint at the DRAC Ile-de-France.
In 1997 she was appointed curator and was assigned to the Musée national du Moyen Age-Thermes de Cluny (Paris).
At the Louvre in 2001, she was curator of the exhibition on Deir el-Medina and the Valley of the Kings which was held there from 15 April to 5 August 2002, Brussels (RMAH) from September to January 2003 and in Turin from February to May 2003.