Greenpeace activists return Macron’s wax doppelgänger to Paris museum Urge action on Russia ties

Greenpeace activists returned a wax figure of French President Emmanuel Macron early on June 4, after removing it from a Paris museum as part of a protest against France’s continued economic relations with Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.

The wax statue, valued at approximately €40,000 ($45,500), had been taken from the Grevin Museum on June 3 in a meticulously planned operation. Greenpeace campaigners then placed the figure outside the Russian Embassy in Paris in a symbolic act of protest.

Continuing the action late on June 3, the activists relocated the statue to the headquarters of French energy giant EDF. They placed it upright, accompanied by a sign that read: “Putin-Macron radioactive allies” — a clear rebuke of President Macron’s refusal to fully sever ties with Vladimir Putin's Russia, particularly in the energy sector.

The statue was packed into a chest and left at the EDF site until police arrived to secure it. Authorities later facilitated its return to the Grevin Museum, Paris’s renowned wax museum, often compared to London’s Madame Tussauds.

“We returned President Macron’s statue because, as we stated from the beginning, we had merely borrowed it,” said Jean-François Julliard, executive director of Greenpeace France, speaking to AFP at the scene. “We informed both the museum’s management and the police. It was up to them to retrieve it.”

Julliard explained that EDF’s headquarters were chosen for the final stage of the protest to confront Macron with the reality of France’s ongoing trade with Russia, especially in the nuclear sector. Despite EU sanctions following the Ukraine invasion, he noted, French companies continue to import various Russian products, including enriched uranium for nuclear plants, natural uranium routed through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan via Russia, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and chemical fertilisers.

He particularly criticised the sharp rise in Russian fertiliser exports to the European Union, which, according to French fertiliser producers, increased by roughly 80 per cent between 2021 and 2023.

A police source said the heist was executed by two women and one man who entered the Grevin Museum on June 3, pretending to be tourists. Once inside, they changed into worker uniforms and exited through an emergency door with the wax figure.

A spokesperson for the Grevin Museum admitted the perpetrators had “clearly done their research very thoroughly.”

By Tamilla Hasanova