PARIS, June 4. /TASS/. Greenpeace activists have returned the statue of French President Emmanuel Macron, stolen on Monday from the Grevin Wax Museum in Paris and left it at the headquarters of the Electricite de France (EDF) energy company, AFP news agency reported.
"We returned the statue of Emmanuel Macron, because, as promised, we only borrowed it," the agency quoted Jean-Francois Julliard, director general of the French division of Greenpeace, as saying. "We have informed the management of the Grevin Museum and the law enforcement authorities. Now they can collect it."
According to Julliard, the EDF headquarters was chosen to "put Macron face to face with his responsibility for trade with Russia, in particular in the nuclear field."
Greenpeace activists removed the wax figure through the emergency exit of the museum early on Monday morning, disguising themselves as museum staff. After that, they brought it to the building of the Russian Embassy in France, setting it up near one of the entrances. A Russian flag was placed next to it and posters with slogans against the continuation of economic cooperation between Russia and France as the conflict in Ukraine is ongoing were unfurled. After a short demonstration, the activists loaded the statue into a car and drove it away in an unknown direction. According to AFP, the sculpture costs about €40,000.
This is not the first such case for the museum. In 1980, a group of bikers, unhappy with the introduction of a tax on two-wheeled vehicles, stole the statue of President Valerie Giscard d'Estaing (1974-1981). In 1993, unknown persons abducted the figure of Jacques Chirac, the future President of France (1995-2007), who was Paris mayor at that time.