Activist arrested for attack on Monet painting in Paris

A climate activist was arrested on Saturday for sticking a poster on a Monet painting at Paris’ Musée d’Orsay to draw attention to global warming, a police source told AFP.

The action of the woman, a member of Riposte Alimentaire (Food Reaction) – a group of environmental activists and advocates of sustainable food production – was seen in a video posted on X (formerly Twitter), where she placed a blood-red poster over the painting “Coquelicots” (Poppies) by the French impressionist Claude Monet.

In the video, she said of the poster of Monet’s art: “This nightmarish image awaits us if no alternative is created.”

Monet’s painting, completed in 1873, shows people with umbrellas walking through a blooming poppy field.

It was not protected by glass. The Musée d’Orsay did not immediately respond to a request from AFP for comment on the condition of the painting after the attack.

Riposte Alimentaire has claimed responsibility for several attacks on works of art to raise awareness of the climate crisis.

These include soup attacks on the Mona Lisa in the Louvre and on another painting by Monet, “Spring,” which is on display at the Lyon Museum of Fine Arts in February.

Last month, activists from the group posted leaflets around “Liberty Leading the People,” a painting by Eugène Delacroix in the Louvre.

In April, two of its members were arrested at the Musée d’Orsay on suspicion of preparing an action there.

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