The vandalism of a Miriam Cahn painting at Paris’s Palais de Tokyo this past weekend has captured the attention of France, with many across the country closely watching the situation. Now, there is a new twist in the ongoing saga: the man who sprayed paint on the work was a former politician associated with the National Rally, the far-right political party whose members also include Marine Le Pen.
Le Monde reported on Monday that the vandal was Pierre Chassin, who previously led the National Rally party in Les Mureaux, a city about an hour away from Paris. While the Paris prosecutor’s office did not confirm to Le Monde that the vandal was Chassin, prominent politicians in France have responded publicly to the report.
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The painting, fuck abstraction !, figures in a current Cahn survey at the Palais de Tokyo that is set to finish its run on May 14. It features a smaller figure with its hands bound performing fellatio on a taller, muscular one.
Cahn stated that she painted the work after encountering reports in 2022 about mass graves in Bucha and war crimes perpetrated by Russians against Ukrainians, including forms of sexual assault. She and the Palais de Tokyo made this context explicit in the form of texts made available to the public, and the museum took measures to keep minors from seeing the work.
Right-wing politicians and children’s rights groups claimed the piece represented a child and an adult, and alleged that in showing it, the Palais de Tokyo and Cahn were promoting pedophilia. Some organizations even unsuccessfully sued to have the piece taken off view.
The vandalism took place on Sunday. In a picture published by Franceinfo, the work appears to be spattered with purple paint that obscures—but does not entirely hide—the scene beneath it. The Palais de Tokyo closed off two galleries after the vandalism on Sunday, but the museum said it plans to keep the work on view through the end of the exhibition’s run after conversations with Cahn, whose work appeared in last year’s Venice Biennale.
Sunday’s events marked another turn in the dramatic story surrounding the work, one of many Cahn has painted that deal with sexual violence and abuses of power. Many have argued that the pushback against the work is a willful attempt to control what can be shown in museums and what artists are allowed to represent.
Emmanuel Macron tweeted on Monday, “To attack a work is to attack our values. In France, art is always free and respect for cultural creation is guaranteed.”
These tense debates continued shortly after the Le Monde report was published.
In a tweet in which she tagged Le Pen and referenced her party’s rebrand from its old name, the National Front, Rima Abdul Malak, the country’s culture minister, continued to argue that the vandalism amounted to an attack on freedom of expression. “Decidedly @MLP_officiel,” Abdul Malak wrote, “nothing has changed since the National Front!”
Caroline Parmentier, a National Rally politician who had previously protested the Cahn painting, tagged Abdul Malak in a tweet of her own, writing, “I am in my role as a parliamentarian, member of the Children’s Rights delegation when I am indignant in front of a painting which depicts a child tied up with his hands behind his back, forced to perform oral sex by an adult. Freedom of expression is also that.”
According to Le Monde, the Palais de Tokyo has filed a complaint regarding the vandalism. The vandal—whether it is Chassin or someone else—could face a 100,000 euro fine and seven years in prison.