Emmanuel Macron and his government have made new enemies. The dissolution by a decree of the Council of Ministers, on Wednesday, of Soulèvements de la Terre (Earth Uprisings), a radical environmental group, has created anger in sectors of the left, criticism from civil rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and appeal to the Council of State.
It is the first time that an environmental civil disobedience movement has been banned in France. According to the daily Libération, a forum for leftist thought, the measure is disproportionate and “illustrates the government’s repressive turn.” According to the newspaper, using “heavy artillery” against an environmental group, even though it uses extreme methods, is not intelligent on the part of the Executive because it means putting them almost on the same level as the terrorists.
The Government justified its harshness in the very violent events that took place in various environmental struggles this year, including the pitched battle on March 28 in Sainte-Soline, in the Deux-Sèvres department (central-west), to prevent the installation of large irrigation ponds, or in the most recent demonstrations against the Lyon-Turin high-speed rail line. A few years earlier there were also very serious riots against the construction of an airport near Nantes. In some cases there were injuries among the forces of order and considerable material damage. Elements of the black blocs (anti-system) probably infiltrated the ecologists.
In the last few days there have been protests in more than a hundred cities against the dissolution of Earth Uprisings. Some were violent, like the one in Toulouse, in which a councilor was injured.
Lawyers for the banned movement filed an appeal with the Council of State and argued that the decree entails “a contempt for fundamental freedoms.” There are doubts about the effectiveness of dissolving a group that is loosely organized through social networks. The Earth Insurrections itself, sensing the measure they would take against it, issued a statement days before to inform its supporters that “far from being intimidated by the repression, we have maintained all the actions planned this season.”
The parliamentary group of La Francia Insumisa (LFI, radical left) and the New Popular Ecologist and Social Union (Nupes) accused the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, of continuing “his logic of criminalizing political ecology.” In a statement, LFI-Nupes expressed its perplexity that the government is so harsh with environmentalists and, instead, “accords impunity to the true friends of terrorism, such as the Lafarge company (cement company), sentenced in 2022 for having financed the Islamic State in Syria.
Amnesty International warned that “current French law regarding the dissolution of organizations raises problems.” “It authorizes the Government to dissolve an organization for vague reasons and without prior control of justice – added the humanitarian NGO -. It is not in accordance with international law.”
The Interior Minister’s pulse has not trembled, in the past, by banning right-wing extremist groups or associations suspected of links to radical Islamism, as well as mosques that carried out incendiary preaching.
Darmanin, a man from the right and close to former President Nicolas Sarkozy, belongs to the most conservative sector of macronism. He is only 40 years old but has a considerable political career behind him. He is considered a potential candidate for the 2027 presidential elections, in which Macron will not be eligible for re-election.
