Protesters throw soup at the Mona Lisa
Two protesters from an environmental group threw pumpkin-colored soup on the Mona Lisa in the Louvre in Paris on Sunday, splashing the bulletproof glass that protects the world's most famous painting but apparently not damaging the work itself.
As the usual crowd around Leonardo da Vinci's 16th-century painting gasped in shock, the protesters, two young women, followed up their charge by passing under a barrier and standing on either side of the artwork, hands raised in an apparent salute.
“What's more important? Art or the right to a healthy and sustainable food system?” the activists said in French. “Our agricultural system is sick.” They were led away by Louvre guards.
It was not immediately clear how the women obtained the soup through the elaborate security system of the museum, which borders the Seine and contains a vast art and archaeological collection spanning civilizations and centuries.
One of the women took off her jacket and a white T-shirt bore the words Riposte Alimentaire, or Food Response. Riposte Alimentaire is part of a coalition of protest groups known as the A22 movement. Among them Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, the group that served tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers in the National Gallery in London in 2022.
The attack on the Mona Lisa came as French farmers have blocked roads, including access to Paris, in recent days to protest low wages and what they see as excessive regulations. Many new regulations in France reflect the attempt to create a green, carbon-free European economy, a goal that farmers find too expensive and burdensome in the short term.
The protests of the two young women and the farmers seemed to reflect two completely different visions of agriculture and the right priorities for European society.
Louvre staff tried to erect cloth screens to hide the soup-splattered Mona Lisa on Sunday, but the screens were ineffective. Images of the attack quickly went viral on social media.
The Mona Lisa has been behind glass since the 1950s, when a visitor poured acid on it. In 2019, the museum installed glass with what it claims is superior transparency. Three years later, another environmentalist threw cake and cream at the painting. It was undamaged.
The latest attack will heighten security concerns ahead of the Paris Olympics.
The opening ceremony is only six months away and will take place on the Seine. A fleet of boats will ferry around 10,000 athletes to the base of the Eiffel Tower, while nearly half a million spectators, including many heads of state, line the six-kilometre route. The boats will sail past the Louvre as part of a ceremony intended to showcase the beauty of Paris, but which has raised serious safety concerns that are still being investigated.