Climate activist defaces Monet painting in Paris | France

A climate activist has been arrested for sticking an adhesive poster on a Monet painting at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris to draw attention to global warming, a police source said.

The action of the woman, member of the Riposte Alimentaire – a group of environmental activists and defenders of sustainable food production – was seen in a video posted on X, placing a blood-red poster on the Poppies by the French impressionist painter Claude Monet.

In the video, she says of the poster covering Monet’s art that “this nightmarish image awaits us if no alternative is put in place.”

Monet’s painting, completed in 1873, depicts people with umbrellas walking through a field of blooming poppies.

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

The Food Response has claimed responsibility for several attacks on art in an attempt to draw attention to the climate crisis.

These include soup attacks on the Mona Lisa at the Louvre and on another Monet painting, Spring, at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon in February.

Last month, activists belonging to the group pasted 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, suspected of preparing an action there.