A decade after the Paris agreement and at the end of an unprecedented heat wave, the French authorities are accused of hindering the action of environmental defenders, in a report published by Amnesty International this Thursday, July 3. The text describes a series of legal, physical and financial restrictions targeting environmental activists in France. The human rights organization sees a “Deliberate strategy”, Who “Fits in a global wave of repression and decline in climate commitments made by the States”.
“It is worrying to see that France, which had been engine ten years ago in the fight for the climate, is today a convincing example of the repression of environmental defenders”, Alert Margot Jaymond, Landcaster Climate Justice at Amnesty International France. The NGO denounces “A system” intended to paralyze the action of pro-climate activists by attacking “Targe and intentional way” to the freedom to demonstrate, expression and association.
Amnesty notably illustrates its conclusions through the repression of mobilizations against the mega-bassines in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres), in 2022 and 2023, during which the police used weapons with reduced lethality (launchers of defense balls) “Disproportionate”.
The NGO also denounces hundreds of police custody and around sixty trials following mobilizations against the A69 motorway project in the Tarn.
These violence is accompanied by“A legislative arsenal” Who «criminalise» the demonstrators, affirms the report, citing in particular the law known as “Anti-hugs” from 2019, or the law of 2021 “Completing respect for the principles of the Republic” said “Separatism law”which facilitates the dissolution of associations or the withdrawal of funding. Among the cases mentioned are the Alternatiba movement, deprived of public subsidies, and the collective Les Rédée de la earth, referred to in 2023 by an attempted dissolution deemed contrary to international law.
Amnesty also alerts on a “Stigmatizing rhetoric” with regard to environmental activists, sometimes qualified as“Ecoteroristes” By certain political leaders, as well as weakening of the media treatment of the climate, to the detriment of the right to information. The NGO calls for the French authorities to “Take urgently” measures to protect the rights of environmental defenders and “Recognize publicly” their work like “Legitimate and essential”.
