The two environmental activists who sprinkled soup on the window protecting the Mona Lisa at the Louvre on Sunday will be presented to a magistrate who will suggest they pay a citizen contribution to a victim assistance association, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on Monday. The two women sprayed the armored glass protecting the Mona Lisa with soup on Sunday morning at the Louvre, claiming their action through “the right to healthy and sustainable food” and “denouncing a sick agricultural system”.
The action was then claimed, in a press release sent to AFP, by a collective called “food response”, presenting itself as “a French civil resistance campaign which aims to bring about a radical change in society in terms of climate and social”.
The two activists were arrested and placed in police custody for damaging a classified or registered property. At the end of their police custody, “the two people were charged with the fine of entering or remaining in a museum in France, belonging to a public person or to a private person carrying out a mission of general interest, including Access is prohibited or regulated in an apparent manner, for having crossed the secure space demarcated in front of the board,” detailed the prosecution, requested by AFP. This violation is punishable by a fine of 1,500 euros. The two activists are presented “today before a delegate of the prosecutor, with a view to a citizen contribution”, which is an alternative to prosecution, it was added.
“The work suffered no damage,” Le Louvre assured AFP on Sunday. According to the museum, the two women hid the pumpkin soup in a coffee thermos. The famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci, presented behind armored protective glass since 2005, has already been the victim of vandalism several times. In May 2022, for example, he was the target of a cream pie.
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