Activist arrested for attacking Monet painting in Paris

A screenshot of the Coquelicots painting by Claude Monet IMAGE from the Musee D’Orsay website

PARIS, France – A climate activist was arrested on Saturday for sticking an adhesive poster on a Monet painting at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris to draw attention to global warming, a police source told AFP.

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

In the video she said 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, shows people with umbrellas strolling in a blooming poppy field.

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

READ: See the moment climate activists throw soup at the ‘Mona Lisa’ in Paris

Riposte Alimentaire has claimed responsibility for several attacks on art in a bid to draw attention to the climate crisis.

They include soup attacks on the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, and on another Monet painting, “Springtime”, in the Lyon Fine Arts Museum in February.

Last month activists belonging to the group stuck flyers around “Liberty Leading the People”, a painting by Eugene Delacroix in the Louvre.

In April, two of its members were arrested at the Musee d’Orsay suspected of preparing an action there.