After Mona Lisa, climate protesters throw soup at Monet painting

The 1872 painting is protected by glass but will still undergo careful inspection.

Dijon, France:

Protesters hurled soup at a Monet painting at a museum in southeastern France on Saturday, the latest move by a campaign group following a similar rendition of the Mona Lisa last month.

The Museum of Fine Arts of France’s third largest city stated in a communiqué that Claude Monet’s masterpiece “Le Printemps” was attacked at 3:30 pm local time on Saturday.

The 1872 painting is protected by glass but will still undergo careful inspection and restoration, the museum said.

The museum said it would lodge a complaint about the vandalism, adding that two activists had been arrested.

Riposte Alimentaire (“Food Fights Back”) claimed responsibility for the attack in a post on It’s too late.”

The group also calls for sustainable, healthy food for all and claimed responsibility for a soup attack on the Louvre Museum’s Mona Lisa painting, which was also behind glass, in January.

Two activists who attacked Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic work have been condemned by a Paris court for doing volunteer work for a charitable association.

Riposte Alimentaire describes itself as a “French civil resistance movement that aims to promote fundamental social change in the environment and society.”

“We love art, but future artists will not be able to paint on a burning planet,” the campaign said.

The mayor of Lyon, from the Ecology Party, posted on

This is not the first time a Monet painting has been targeted by eco-activists.

In October 2022, protesters from the German branch of the “Last Generation” threw mash at “Les Meules” (haystacks) in the Potsdam Museum. It is also protected by glass.

In June 2023, activists in Stockholm smeared red paint on the glass of “The Artist’s Garden at Giverny”, another French Impressionist work, and glued their hands to the glass.

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