Last Monday Greenpeace activists carried out an unusual heist from the Musée Grevin in Paris. Entering the waxworks attraction as regular tourists, two women and a man kidnapped the figure of President Macron, placing him under a blanket as they left through an emergency exit, this time posing as maintenance workers.
It’s one of the more creative actions your roving art-crime correspondent has come across. Protesters first set the figure outside the Russian embassy to protest against the continuing links between French business and Russia and the lack of stronger action against climate change. For Greenpeace, the presence of the former and lack of the latter meant that Macron’s waxwork ‘does not deserve to be exhibited in this world-renowned cultural institution until he has terminated French contracts with Russia and driven an ambitious and sustainable ecological transition across Europe’. The president’s likeness then made an appearance at the headquarters of French energy giant EDF, before activists handed him over, unharmed, to police custody on Tuesday evening. Two members of Greenpeace have been charged with aggravated theft.
The Musée Grevin has since remarked on Instagram that ‘The figures can only be viewed on site’.