France dissolves ecology movement accused of violence – 06/21/2023 – Environment

The French government dissolved this Wednesday (21), during a meeting of the Council of Ministers, the environmentalist collective SLT (Soulèvements de la Terre; in Portuguese, Revolts of the Earth), accused of “convening” and “participating” in acts of violence.

The decision is criticized by the left, in a context of urgent action against climate change. In recent months, the group has mobilized on several fronts to denounce infrastructure projects and their effects on nature.

“You can’t dissolve a revolt,” the group reacted on Twitter, calling for public support. “Stocks will resurge everywhere, with or without dissolution,” adds the collective’s message.

For the government, “the use of violence is not legitimate under the rule of law and that is what is being sanctioned”, explained the spokesman for the French government, Olivier Véran, after the Council of Ministers. This group “was not dissolved because of its ideas, but because of the modality of action”, Véran pointed out.

“Under the pretext of defending the preservation of the environment”, this movement “incites the practice of sabotage and material damage, including through violence”, writes the government in its dissolution decree.

“No cause justifies particularly numerous and violent acts” which “calls and provokes” and “in which its members and sympathizers participate”, observed the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin.

To support this argument, the French government lists a series of actions carried out by the SLT that resulted in “material destruction” and “physical attacks against police officers”.

On their website, the group presents itself as “angry young people” who “grew up in the midst of ecological catastrophe”. The movement’s founding text dates from March 2021. It says that the participants fight “to produce healthy, financially accessible food”, denouncing extensive farming.

The collective’s dissolution process began on March 28, a few days after violent clashes between security agents and opponents of the construction of large water reservoirs for agriculture in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres), for which the government attributed responsibility to the movement, at the time accused of “ecoterrorism” and committing acts of sabotage. The authorities were accused of launching “a major crackdown”.

The procedure was blocked for more than two months, being resumed after a new demonstration supported by the SLT, this weekend, against the railway link between Lyon and Turin, marked by strong clashes. Between 3,000 and 7,000 people took part in the protests that took place on Saturday (17) and ended in clashes with the police.

“We are going to court and we believe in the possibility of a judicial victory to overturn this decision, as has happened with other dissolutions for political reasons in recent years”, reacted the SLT collective.

arrests of activists

Parallel to the dissolution, there is a wave of arrests of environmental activists, as part of the investigation of an action dated at the end of 2022 against a cement factory belonging to the French company Lafarge, in Provence, and which had been supported by the SLT.

A source told AFP that 16 people were still in custody on Wednesday. These arrests were made in the Loire-Atlantique region, in particular at Notre-Dame-des-Landes, and in the Marseille region.

The dissolution of the collective and the arrests were denounced by a section of the French left.

“I see a true deviation and a loss of composure,” said environmentalist deputy Julien Bayou on Wednesday. “The President of the Republic continues to criminalize social movements, this is dangerous,” he told journalists at the National Assembly.

“They will end up like those who finally did not understand anything about the issues” of the climate, commented on Twitter the deputy EELV (Europe, Ecology and The Greens) Sandrine Rousseau, quoting President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne and Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin.

The leader of the radical left France Insubmissive party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, lamented this Tuesday (20) that the activists have been “repressed as terrorists, which they are not”, judging that they should be heard.

The Human Rights League denounced a “questioning of freedom of association, manifestation, expression, as well as the rights of defense” and called for “adherence to demonstrations of support” in the SLT.

In a press release, the Greenpeace France movement denounced the dissolution of the SLT collective as an “instrumentalization of the law to violate individual freedoms”.

(With information from AFP)