Activists hurl soup at Mona Lisa

Two women from an environmental group threw orange soup at Leonardo Da Vinci’s masterwork, which is behind bulletproof glass at the Louvre.

Two protesters on Sunday hurled pumpkin soup at the bulletproof glass protecting Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” in Paris, demanding the right to “healthy and sustainable food”, an AFP journalist and the museum said.

The action, which comes as French farmers protest across the country, is the latest in a string of similar attacks against artworks to demand more action to protect the planet.

Two environmental activists from the collective dubbed "Riposte Alimentaire" (Food Retaliation) hurled soup at Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" painting, at the Louvre museum in Paris, on January 28, 2024. Picture: AFP

Two women on Sunday morning flung streams of orange-coloured soup onto the glass protecting the smiling lady to gasps from the crowd in the French capital’s Louvre museum, according to an AFP journalist at the scene.

“What is more important? Art or the right to healthy and sustainable food,” the activists asked, standing in front of the painting and speaking in turn.

“Your agricultural system is sick. Our farmers are dying at work,” they said, before security staff evacuated the room.

The Paris prosecutors office said both activists had been detained. The Louvre museum said the women had hidden the pumpkin soup in a coffee Thermos.

Two protesters on January 38, 2024 hurled soup at the bulletproof glass protecting Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" in Paris, demanding the right to "healthy and sustainable food.” Picture: AFP

Small quantities of food are allowed inside the museum, though eating is not allowed in the exhibition rooms.

The museum said the artwork had suffered “no damage”, and the room housing the masterpiece had reopened to the public after closing for around an hour.

‘Civil resistance’

A group called Riposte Alimentaire ("Food counter-attack") claimed responsibility for the stunt.

They said the soup throwing marked the “start of a campaign of civil resistance with the clear demand …: social security of sustainable food”.

They referred to a survey of 996 people last year by the Ipsos polling group that found that one in three French people were not always able to afford enough healthy food for three meals a day.

Member Till Van Elst said the group wanted the state to allow people to buy selected food items at reduced rates through a specialised social security card. Under the scheme, democratic assemblies would choose the food to be subsidised.

“We want citizens to really be able to decide what is in their plates,” he told AFP.

Culture Minister Rachida Dati criticised the soup attack.

“The Mona Lisa, as our heritage, belongs to future generations. No cause can justify targeting it,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“I’m not sure that the Mona Lisa is the biggest polluter in France,” government spokeswoman Prisca Thevenot told France 3 television. “What was that about?” Sunday’s action comes as French farmers have been protesting for days to demand higher prices, lower taxes and looser regulations.

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

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

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 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 “Sunflowers” at the National Gallery in London.

Activists with @JustStop_Oil have thrown tomato soup on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the national Gallery and glued themselves to the wall. pic.twitter.com/M8YP1LPTOU

— Damien Gayle (@damiengayle) October 14, 2022

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

The “Mona Lisa” has been attacked several times before.

Visitors take pictures and video of the painting "Mona Lisa" after custard pie was smeared on the protective glass at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France May 29, 2022. Picture: X

A man threw a custard pie at her in May 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 glass since a Bolivian man threw a rock at her in December 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.