What do Jacuzzis, SUV vehicles, “mega-basins” used by agricultural cooperatives and golf courses have in common? All have suffered multiple damage this summer, caused by activists wishing to fight against climate change. While five Jacuzzis were lacerated, the tires of a hundred “urban 4x4s” were deflated, basins used to irrigate production farms were dismantled by the removal of the tarpaulins which allow the retention of the water, and golf holes have been savagely filled in in Limoges and Toulouse… Acts of vandalism are on the increase, and attract as much attention as emotion. Arousing satisfaction in some or indignation in others.
From intimate to social
At the origin of these operations, activists for whom demonstrations are no longer enough. “I have always been sensitive to the environmental cause. I started with citizen lobbying actions. The very partial transcription of the Citizens’ Convention for the Climate into law provoked in me a feeling of betrayal such that it took me ‘has pushed towards another level of activism, more radical,’ says anonymously one of the five participants in the operation to “clog” golf holes in Limoges. He says he is bathed in a “joyful despair” which pushes him to “fight so that it is less catastrophic than if nothing is done”. His team was made up of people aged 25 to 50, all driven by the same faith.
Even more than fear or anxiety, ecopsychologist Jean-Pierre Le Danff believes that there is “more generally a suffering that anticipates loss”. And it is to this intimate suffering that some “respond in a personal way”. The actors of the Kirikou action which also consisted in filling the cavities of the greens, but this time in Toulouse and by means of cement rather than dried plants, prefer to speak of “indignation”. “It’s a feeling that creates energy and which is the opposite of the helplessness that we often witness and which can lead to a certain form of depression”, details one of the members of the team. , who does not wish to reveal his identity for fear, among other things, of legal reprisals. Far from wanting to be overwhelmed by emotion, the latter affirms that their acts of vandalism are not the pastime “of a group of bored young people” but, above all, “the fruit of a reflection Politics”.
“An anti-economic, anti-environmental and anti-agricultural act”
But whatever the motivations, damaging the property of others remains, on the one hand, illegal and, on the other hand, immoral and unbearable for a whole section of the population. Through the extreme reactions that sabotage provokes, social and political dissension comes to light. Activists are singled out for not being in a process of providing solutions but in a dynamic of destruction, for not thinking about the financial consequences of their actions or for generating more pollution because of the repairs required. Some, even among the activists of the climate cause, finally accuse them of aggravating the polarization by discrediting in passing the ecological claims as a whole. Thus, after the dismantling of a basin in Vendée, Arnaud Charpentier, departmental councilor, vehemently denounced on his Twitter account “an anti-economic, anti-environmental and anti-agricultural act”.
Even more divisive: the deflation of SUV tires, accompanied by an explanatory note addressed to owners, which has been rampant for years all over the world and has accelerated since the beginning of this year. Since they deflate tires, without puncturing them to minimize the material and legal consequences, the saboteurs expose themselves to more or less heavy threats. On social networks, some owners of these urban 4x4s threaten to “burst their lungs” in return…
Not enough to curb the ardor of activists, however. “We already consider ourselves a symptom of pre-existing tensions which are created by the stubbornness of the public authorities in not acting, analyze the members of the Kirikou collective. It is obvious that an action like ours gives rise to disagreements. This is not a problem, it helps to fuel the debate and highlight ecological issues.” According to them, these operations therefore do not replace the traditional pleas of environmental NGOs, but help them to be heard by making them appear as “more measured and reasonable”… and therefore acceptable.
For psychologist Jean-Pierre Le Danff, the risk is that with the worsening of climate change, injustices are more glaring than ever, and that “a symmetrical rise in violence” between people sensitive to climate disasters and others will become inevitable. For almost all climate defense associations, vandalism or sabotage of material goods deemed “non-essential” is the ultimate level of tolerated violence. They are above all considered useful for alerting and highlighting subjects that are not sufficiently taken into account. They are also proof that the ecological transition cannot work without social justice. One of the members of the Extinction Rebellion movement in Limoges explains his motivation: “We don’t want to give lessons to anyone but we want all these subjects to be quickly debated.” Not sure that justice has the same reading of these acts of sabotage.