Venice, the Grand Canal turns red and green: two French environmentalists stopped: “Artistic and ecological gesture”

«An artistic project with ecological claim and political protest». Speaking their native language, but using a few words of Italian, the French man and woman aged 57 and 48 stopped by Digos, after the water in the Grand Canal had turned green and red, they thus claimed responsibility for the gesture. Six cans with the tap and the colored liquid substance inside (to be analyzed by the ARPAV) found on the back of a vaporetto on line 1, from San Marco to the Accademia, which along the way at a certain point began to lose its colors in the lagoon water: between bright green, fluorescent yellow and then red. The Venetians on the boat noticed what the two were doing and alerted the pilot, who together with the sailor kept them still until the arrival of the Flying Police. Digos then took steps to identify and interview them.

The first hypotheses

Already on Wednesday the police had seen an anomalous spill of colored substances into the water along the Biennale Basin, in the Giardini, immediately afterwards noticing the presence of a man and a woman. They could be the same people blocked and identified. In addition to the six cans, the police officers and those of the local police of Venice found a bag of colored powder and a fishing rod. On a sign on the Academy bridge, as the two French people later repeated, it was explained that the substances used to dye the water are not toxic and that they are one hundred percent natural organic elements. An “artistic event” not claimed at the moment, as those responsible have ensured that they are not part of any specific environmental organization or association. Extinction Rebellion Venezia, which confirmed its non-involvement in the facts, feared the possibility that the action belonged to groups of the same movement but active abroad.

The previous

Now samples of the water and contents of the cans and bag will be examined. The French, already with the warning issued by the police commissioner for a year, risk administrative fines and complaints, as happened to the Rialto activist group in December. Unauthorized spillage into the lagoon entails sanctions from the local police. The police headquarters could proceed for causing an alarm, interruption of public service and unauthorized demonstration. «It seems that if you pollute, occupy or shout louder you are more right – comments the mayor Luigi Brugnaro -. It doesn’t seem like the solution to me.” Governor Luca Zaia condemns the gesture: «Venice must be defended, not outraged. Similar gestures could become the showcase for emulative actions.”