Environmental activists on Friday daubed the Louvre's glass pyramid with thick black treacle in protest at what they said were the environmentally-damaging activities of museum sponsor Total.
Clad in black, the activists belonging to "Liberons le Louvre" (Let's Free the Louvre) plastered dirty hand-prints over the museum's famed 70-foot-high glass-and-steel pyramid, a much-loved Paris landmark, as tourists gazed on.
They dipped their hands into bags of molasses - a black treacle that results from refining sugar cane - before smearing it over the structure to denounce what they called "the dirty hands" of Total.
Total has made contributions to the Louvre to renovate the Galerie d'Apollon and to set up an Islamic art wing in the last 20 years, the museum says on its website.
Total did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
