Petr Pavlensky learned on 8 June 2026 that France intends to strip him of his international protection status. The Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons, known by its French acronym OFPRA, has initiated a formal revocation procedure. The stated grounds are his participation in two actions on French territory: Lighting in 2017 and Pornopolitics in 2020.
Pavlensky’s response was “It seems the French authorities really don’t like subject-object art.”
Pavlensky was born in Leningrad in 1984 and came to international attention through a series of extreme body-based actions carried out in Russia between 2012 and 2016. In Seam, he sewed his mouth shut outside the Kazan Cathedral in Saint Petersburg in protest at the prosecution of Pussy Riot. In Fixation, he nailed his scrotum to the cobblestones of Red Square. In Segregation, he wrapped himself in barbed wire outside the Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly. In Carcass, he lay naked and wrapped in coils of wire outside the Serbsky Centre, Russia’s most notorious psychiatric institution. Each action was documented, each generated a criminal case, and each was conceived as a confrontation between the artist’s body and the state’s body.
The most significant of the Russian actions was the threat, carried out in 2015. Pavlensky arrived outside the Federal Security Service headquarters on Lubyanka Square in Moscow, poured petrol on the front door and set it alight. He stood and watched until the police arrived. The image of a man burning the door of the FSB building circulated widely. He was charged with vandalism.
He was granted asylum in France in 2017, the same year he set fire to the doors of the Banque de France in Paris as part of the Lightning action. The work was framed as a comment on financial power and its architecture. French prosecutors did not treat it as art. He was convicted. Pornopolitics, the 2020 action, involved the publication of a sex tape featuring a prominent French politician and generated a separate criminal case, along with significant political controversy.
That France granted him asylum and then prosecuted him for actions carried out on French soil has always been one of the more uncomfortable aspects of his situation. OFPRA is now moving to revoke the protection that enabled those prosecutions, adding another layer to a story that has never been straightforward.
The revocation procedure has been initiated. It has not yet concluded. Pavlensky has the right to respond formally to OFPRA’s notification. Whether that process will alter the outcome remains to be seen.
A translation of the letter is seen below.
OFFICE FOR THE PROTECTION OF REFUGEES AND STATELESS PERSONS (OFPRA) FRENCH REPUBLIC
Courier No.: SD2-000000-00-260526
File No.: 2017-03-23902-SD-GELC
(Please quote this number in all correspondence)
Spouse No.: 17-03-23873
Status Monitoring Division
Sent by Registered Mail with Acknowledgement of Receipt
To: Mr Pavlenskiy Petr Andreievitch
Subject: Reassessment of your situation regarding international protection
Sir,
OFPRA granted you refugee status by a decision dated 28 April 2017.
However, subject to any observations that you may submit in writing in response to this letter, OFPRA is considering terminating your refugee status pursuant to Article L.511-7, paragraph 2, of the French Code on the Entry and Residence of Foreigners and the Right of Asylum (CESEDA), based on your final conviction by the Paris Criminal Court on 10 January 2019 for destruction of property belonging to another person by means dangerous to individuals.
As these acts constitute offences punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment, OFPRA may consider that your presence on French territory poses a serious threat to French society.
It also appears that the Paris Criminal Court convicted you on 11 October 2023, for offences involving the violation of privacy through the recording, filming, or transmission of the image of a person engaged in sexual activity, as well as the use, retention, or dissemination of a document or recording containing words or images of a sexual nature obtained through an invasion of another person’s privacy.
As part of the procedure to reassess your entitlement to international protection, initiated based on the facts described above, you have the opportunity to submit written observations within 21 days of receiving this letter.
These observations should explain the circumstances surrounding the offences mentioned above and may include any relevant supporting documents (copies only) that you believe could justify maintaining your protection status.
You are particularly invited to provide explanations regarding the offences for which you were convicted, as well as any documentation relating to your family and personal circumstances, your professional integration in France, any medical and/or psychological treatment you are receiving, and any documents relating to social or judicial supervision.
To expedite the processing of your file, please attach this letter to your response. Your written observations should preferably be sent to the following email address:
If no response is received, your situation will be examined solely based on the information already contained in your file. The Secretariat of the Status Monitoring Service sent a letter by registered mail with acknowledgement of receipt.