Food for thought as protesters hurl soup at Mona Lisa in Paris

TWO protesters yesterday hurled pumpkin soup at the bullet-proof glass protecting Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” demanding the right to “healthy and sustainable food,” Paris’ Louvre 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 women yesterday morning flung streams of orange soup onto the glass protecting the smiling lady to gasps from the crowd in the museum.

“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.

A police source said both activists had been detained.

The Louvre Museum said the women had hidden the pumpkin soup in a coffee thermos.

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 re-opened to the public after closing for around an hour.

A group called Riposte Alimentaire (“Food counterattack”) claimed responsibility for the stunt.

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.”

Culture Minister Rachida Dati criticized 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.

Yesterday’s action comes as French farmers have been protesting to demand better pay, taxes and 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 yesterday scrambled to announce new measures as some farmers threatened to block roads into the capital Paris today.

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