Faced with this wave of actions, the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has defended the need to toughen sanctions against those who perpetrate them, even to prison terms. The German Chancellor himself, Olaf Scholz, of the ruling Social Democratic Party, recognized that he likes “for works of art to be smeared with mash.” On the usual roadblocks in protests, he pointed out that “people who find themselves in a traffic jam do not suddenly understand the seriousness of the problem, but simply get angry and I think that is not a good idea.” In recent weeks works of art in museums in Berlin, London, Rome, Amsterdam or Madrid have been attacked with tomato soup, mashed potatoes, mashed peas or fake blood and in Germany the actions of the Letzte Generation (Last Generation) sticking to the roadway for traffic. Protest at the Prado Museum The CDU hopes to present a legislative initiative in the Bundestag next week, according to the newspaper ‘Bild am Sonntag’. The text provides for short prison sentences for those who intentionally cut off traffic or obstruct the transit of emergency services, firefighters or police vehicles. Activists “should not have a license to commit crimes,” argued the CDU spokesman in Parliament, Alexander Dobrindt, in statements to the ‘Bild am Sonntag’. These harsher sentences could help “counter the further radicalization of this climate movement and set an example for copycats.” One of the most criticized incidents is in which a cyclist died on Thursday after being hit by a truck in Berlin. The ambulance was unable to get past a blockade by climate activists on its way to the crash site, although medical sources warn that it could not have done much for her life even without the blockade.