ACTIVISTS have thrown food over a painting in a German museum in another high-profile environmental protest.

Days after Just Stop Oil protesters threw tomato soup over Vincent van Goghs’s masterpiece Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London, two activists targeted Claude Monet’s Haystacks painting in Potsdam’s Museum Barerini on Sunday.

The pair, from the Last Generation group, covered Monet’s painting with mashed potato before glueing themselves to the wall.

The police arrived quickly and arrested the protesters.

In a video of the incident, tweeted by Last Generation, one of the protesters said: “People are starving, people are freezing, people are dying.

“We are in a climate catastrophe and all you are afraid of is tomato soup or mashed potatoes on a painting. You know what I’m afraid of? I’m afraid because science tells us that we won’t be able to feed our families in 2050.

“Does it take mashed potatoes on a painting to make you listen? This painting is not going to be worth anything if we have to fight over food.”

The group said: “If it takes pelting a painting with mashed potato or tomato soup to remind society that the fossil course is killing us all, then we give you mashed potato on a painting.”

A museum spokesperson said that because the painting was protected by glass, no damage had been caused.

Last year, Last Generation members  staged a hunger strike outside the Reichstag building in Berlin to protest at the lack of political action over the climate emergency. 

The group accuses the German government of ignoring all warnings and bringing the country to “the edge of the abyss.” 

They say they are part of the last generation that can prevent society from collapsing.