A wax figure of French President Emmanuel Macron was stolen from the Grevin wax museum in Paris by activists from the environmental movement Greenpeace, who then placed it in front of the Russian embassy in the French capital, Agence France-Presse reported, BTA reported.
According to a police source, two women and one man took part in the action. They broke into the museum building in central Paris this morning. There, they changed clothes to look like craftsmen from the museum's workshops and museum maintenance workers and managed to take the president's statue worth 40,000 euros, wrapped in a blanket, out the emergency exit. A museum spokesman said that the activists had apparently done a thorough inspection of the site to know what to do. They had called the museum to make sure that the statue would be returned unharmed.
Shortly after that, the activists placed Macron's wax figure in front of the Russian embassy in Paris. The action in front of the embassy lasted only a few minutes. The activists also unfurled a Russian flag behind the Macron statue, and one of them held up a bright yellow poster that read: “Business is business“. Then the “Greenpeace“ activists also threw counterfeit banknotes.
They say that the action was aimed at exposing “France's double game regarding Ukraine”. "Macron supports Ukraine, but encourages French companies to continue trading with Russia," said Jean-François Julier, director general of "Greenpeace France".
The non-governmental organization protests against economic ties between France and Russia in the natural gas, fertilizer and nuclear energy sectors. "Greenpeace" says that the EU has increased imports of Russian fertilizers between 2021 and 2023. According to French fertilizer producers, this increase is more than 80 percent.
The EU wants to impose tariffs on Russian fertilizer imports now to reduce this dependence. European farmers warn that this is a measure that will only make fertilizers more expensive and want to first remove tariffs on fertilizers coming from the rest of the world. "Our action is specifically directed against Macron because he is particularly responsible for this situation," Julier said. "Macron should be at the forefront of discussions at the European level about suspending trade agreements between Russia and European countries," he added.