A new scandal that risks causing a lot of talk! This Monday, November 6, activists from the environmentalist collective Just Stop Oil broke the protective glass of a painting by the famous Spanish painter Velázquez at the National Gallery in London! The museum immediately called the police, evacuated the premises and the painting was removed and examined by museum curators.

This punch action (or rather hammer blow) took place in the morning around 10:45 a.m. Two young activists, aged 20 and 22, entered the National Gallery and beat the protective glass of the Venus known as the Mirror. Fortunately, after inspection, the condition of the canvas seems intact... It is still a precious painting since the only remaining nude by the Spanish painter!

But why such an action? By doing so, the collective intends to raise awareness in order to put a stop to new oil and gas projects in the United Kingdom. Indeed, the executive has just reversed its climate commitments since it has just awarded new licenses for hydrocarbon drilling and exploration in the North Sea.

The very controversial collective is not its first action: last year, two paintings had already been targeted at the National Gallery and the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague: Les Tournesols by Van Gogh and The Girl with a Pearl Earring by Vermeer. Here too, fortunately, the canvases had not suffered any damage either.

Will this new action be the last? Can we hope to enter the path of reconciliation and move towards a potential agreement between the values of ecological collectives and government decisions? Nothing is certain, but in any case, we hope for it more than ever...