The two activists said their stunt at the Louvre museum was a call for food security, as farmers protest across France.
Two activists hurled pumpkin soup at the bulletproof glass protecting Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, at the Louvre museum in Paris on Sunday.
They passed under a security barrier, drawing gasps from visitors, while wearing T-shirts with the message: ‘FOOD RIPOSTE’ (food response).
“What’s the most important thing? Art, or the right to healthy and sustainable food?,” they shouted, claiming that “our farming system is sick. Our farmers are dying at work.”
The Louvre security guards put up black screens in front of them before evacuating the room. The museum said the early 16th century painting was not damaged by the pumpkin soup, and that a complaint would be lodged.
ALERTE – Des militantes pour le climat jettent de la soupe sur le tableau de La Joconde au musée du Louvre. @CLPRESSFR pic.twitter.com/Aa7gavRRc4
— CLPRESS / Agence de presse (@CLPRESSFR) January 28, 2024
The incident at the world’s most visited museum occurred at around 10:00 local time in the Salle des Etats. The section reopened to visitors an hour and a half later.
The Riposte Alimentaire (Food Retaliation) group, which advocates for action on climate change and sustainable agriculture, claimed responsibility for the stunt. The group demanded the establishment of “Sustainable Food Social Security” in a statement on X (formerly Twitter). They called for a food card worth €150 ($162) to be given to French citizens each month.The French minister of culture Rachida Dati condemned the soup-throwing, saying that “no cause could justify [the Mona Lisa] being attacked.”
Farmers have been blocking roads with tractors and trucks in several parts of France, in a movement that started last week. They are protesting against high taxes on tractor fuel, cheap imports, price pressure from retailers, a shortage of water, and excessive red tape on both the national and EU levels.
The French government has been promising for months to introduce a law that would support farmers. Despite some concessions from the government on Friday, Arnaud Rousseau, the head of the biggest farming union FNSEA, said they did not fully meet expectations. Farmers are threatening to blockade Paris starting Monday.
There have been a rash of widely publicized attacks by climate change protesters on artworks such as Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and Monet’s Les Meules. The Mona Lisa was also targeted in the past.
To be clear, the farmers have legitimate grievances with that pompous globalist toad and his insane green tyranny.
The people who are throwing soup at replicas of priceless artworks behind bullet proof panels (while the REAL ones likely sit safely in a bunker several stories below) are propagandised numbskulls annoying everyone else around them.
Two very different groups of people.
Are these real farmer supporters, or climate change plants to draw outrage from the public against the farmers?
It would be very bold of them to assume they’d be able to make anyone hate a farmer more than a politician in the 2020’s
If they had to work the land, like farmers do, they would not have time for this insane and hysterical show.
Bored bourgeois women with nothing to do, and in need of attention…..
Idiots!!! Stunts like this do nothing to further the cause