This image grab taken from AFPTV footage shows two environmental activists from the collective dubbed “Riposte Alimentaire” (Food Retaliation) hurling soup at Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” (La Joconde) painting, at the Louvre museum in Paris, on January 28, 2024. | Photo by David CANTINIAUX / AFPTV / AFP
Two protesters on Sunday hurled soup at the bullet-proof glass protecting Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” in Paris, demanding the right to “healthy and sustainable food”, an AFP journalist saw.
Two women threw red and orange soup onto the glass protecting the smiling lady to gasps from the crowd in the French capital’s Louvre museum, an AFP video journalist reported.
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“What is more important? Art or the right to healthy and sustainable food,” they asked, standing in front of the painting and speaking in turn.
“Your agricultural system is sick. Our farmers are dying at work.”
The action comes as French farmers have been protesting for days to demand better pay, taxes and regulations.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on Friday announced several measures, but road blockages have continued in different parts of the country.
Sunday’s action follows a series of such stunts by climate activists against world-famous paintings to demand more action to phase out fossil fuels and protect the planet.
It was not the first attack on the “Mona Lisa”.
A 36-year-old man threw a custard pie at her in May 2022, because artists were not focusing enough on “the planet”, but the thick glass casing ensured she came to no harm.