The two women on Sunday flung pumpkin soup at the bullet-proof glass protecting da Vinci's most famous painting at the Louvre art museum, demanding the right to "healthy and sustainable food."
A group called Riposte Alimentaire ("Food counterattack") claimed responsibility for the stunt.
The two activists were arrested and temporarily placed in police custody.
The public prosecutor's office said that the activists were accused of illegally entering the secure area around the painting, an offence carrying a maximum fine of 1,500 euros ($1,620).
The two activists were to be brought before prosecutors on Monday afternoon with a view to making a "citizen's contribution" rather than facing a trial, the public prosecutor's office said.
Under the French system, making such a donation to a victim's association is an alternative to prosecution. The amount is determined by prosecutors up to a maximum of 3,000 euros.
The Louvre museum said the painting had not suffered any damage, adding that the women had hidden the pumpkin soup in a thermos flask.
The painting, which has been kept behind bulletproof glass since 2005, has been repeatedly attacked. In 2022, the masterpiece was targeted with a cream pie.
Activists splash soup on glass-protected Mona Lisa
Paris (AFP) Jan 28, 2024 -
Two protesters on Sunday hurled pumpkin 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 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 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.
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.
- 'Civil resistance' -
A group called Riposte Alimentaire ("Food counterattack") 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.
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 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.
Art attack: masterpieces targeted by activists
Paris (AFP) Jan 28, 2024 -
The dousing of a glass-covered Mona Lisa in pumpkin soup is the latest in a string of cases of priceless artworks being targeted by environmental activists.
Here are some of the other cases that have made headlines in the past two years:
- Soup for "Sunflowers" -
In October 2022, two activists from the Just Stop Oil group emptied cans of tomato soup over the glass protecting Vincent van Gogh's "Sunflowers" in London's National Gallery.
The pair, who complained that art lovers were more concerned with paintings than the planet, were arrested and charged with damaging the frame.
A month later, activists from the Last Generation group splashed pea soup onto another Van Gogh -- "The Sower" -- in Rome.
The painting, exhibited behind glass, was also undamaged.
- Mash for Monet -
In October 2022, protesters from the German branch of Last Generation flung mash at a Claude Monet, "Les Meules" (The Haystacks), hanging in a museum in Potsdam. It too was protected by glass.
In June 2023, activists in Stockholm smeared red paint and glued their hands to the glass covering another of the French impressionist's works, "The Artist's Garden at Giverny", in a Swedish museum.
- Glued to Vermeer -
In October 2022, a man in Dutch city of The Hague glued his head to the glass protecting Johannes Vermeer's "Girl With a Pearl Earring" in the Mauritshuis museum.
A second activist poured tomato soup on it.
- Hands-on with Goya -
In November 2022, two Extinction Rebellion activists each glued a hand to the frames of two paintings by Spanish master Francisco Goya in the Prado museum in Madrid.
The protest did not damage either painting.
- Painting Degas -
In April 2023, climate activists attacked a famous Degas wax sculpture -- "La petite danseuse de quatorze ans" (Little Dancer, 14 years old) -- in a Washington museum, smearing its Plexiglas enclosure with red and black paint.
"Today, through nonviolent rebellion, we temporarily defiled a work of art to evoke the very real children whose suffering is certain if deadly fossil fuel companies continue to mine coal, oil and gas from the soil", the group which claimed the action, which called itself Declare Emergency, wrote on Instagram.
- Taking a hammer to Velasquez -
In November 2023, Just Stop Oil protesters smashed the glass cover of a Diego Velazquez painting, "The Rokeby Venus" at the National Gallery in London with hammers.
They said they were inspired by the work of a suffragette who slashed the painting in the early 20th century during a campaign for the right to vote.
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