Outrage as iconic Mona Lisa painting defaced by protesters

The defaced Mona Lisa, protected by glass. Picture: David Cantiniaux/AFPTV/AFP

One of the world’s most iconic paintings, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, has been attacked by protesters in the Louvre.

Two protesters have hurled soup at the bulletproof glass protecting Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic painting, the Mona Lisa, in Paris’s Louvre museum.

The act of vandalism on Sunday, which came as French farmers protested across the country, was the latest in a string of similar attacks against artworks to demand more action to protect the planet.

On Sunday morning, local time, two women flung streams of red and orange soup onto the glass protecting the painting, sparking gasps from bystanders.

“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,” they added, before security staff placed black screens in front of them and evacuated the room.

The two women hurl soup at the painting. Picture: David Cantiniaux/AFPTV/AFP

The protesters speaking before security intervened. Picture: David Cantiniaux/AFPTV/AFP

A group called Riposte Alimentaire, which translates as “Food Counterattack”, claimed responsibility for the stunt.

In a statement sent to AFP, it said the soup throwing marked the “start of a campaign of civil resistance with the clear demand … of the social security of sustainable food”.

The action comes amid days of protests from French farmers, who are demanding better pay, taxes and regulations.

The French government has been trying to keep discontent among the agricultural workers from spreading in the months ahead of European parliament elections, which are seen as a key test for President Emmanuel Macron’s faction.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on Sunday scrambled to announce new measures as some farmers threatened to block roads into the capital.

The women wore T-shirts bearing the protest group’s name. Picture: David Cantiniaux/AFPTV/AFP

Luckily the painting is protected by glass. Picture: David Cantiniaux/AFPTV/AFP

Custard pie

The action at the museum follows a series of such stunts by climate activists against world-famous paintings to demand more action to phase out fossil fuels and prevent global warming.

In October of 2022, two activists from the Just Stop Oil group grabbed headlines when they splashed tomato soup over the glass protecting Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh’s painting Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London.

They complained that art lovers were more concerned with paintings than the planet.

The Mona Lisa has been attacked several times before. A man threw a custard pie at her in May of 2022, also saying artists were not focusing enough on “the planet”. Her thick glass casing ensured she came to no harm.

She has been behind the glass since a Bolivian man threw a rock at her all the way back in December of 1956, damaging her left elbow.

The glass was made bulletproof in 2005.

In 2009, a woman threw an empty teacup at the painting, which slightly scratched the case.