Mr president, please return the Mona Lisa to Italy, says Tour rider Bettiol

BORDEAUX, France : Italian Tour de France rider Alberto Bettiol took to social media on Friday to ask French President Emmanuel Macron to return the Mona Lisa to his home country.

"Monsieur le Président, please give us back the Monna Lisa and thanks for coming to the Tour," Bettiol tweeted, using the Italian spelling for Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece.

Macron paid a visit to the world's greatest cycling race on Thursday, where he shook hands with Bettiol, of the EF Education EasyPost team.

Da Vinci left his native Italy when his patron died and spent his last years in France as the guest of the French monarch, until he died in May 1519 at the Loire Valley chateau that had become his home.

Upon his death, the artist's assistant inherited the work and sold it to France's King Francis I for 4,000 gold coins.

It was kept it at the Palace at Fontainebleau, where it remained until King Louis XIV moved the painting to the Palace of Versailles. Following the French Revolution it was moved to the Louvre museum where it is still displayed.

It made a brief passage to Italy when it was stolen in 1911 but returned to the Louvre when museum worker Vincenzo Peruggia was arrested for its theft when he was caught trying to sell the painting to a gallery in Florence.

Pressure has grown in recent years for the painting's permanent return to Italy.