Extinction Rebellion activists attack BNP Paribas, financier of Total

In a few minutes, banners and a fake pipeline were unfurled, the walls of the BNP Paribas branch sprayed with paint and the boulevard blocked by around forty activists fromExtinction Rebellion.

Elio is one of them, he demands the end of all new oil projects, as recommended by the International Energy Agency. ” Each year, more than 35 million tons of CO2 will be released into the atmosphere while we are already burning, and today, we are in front of the BNP bank, he says at the microphone ofJeanne Richard, from the France service of RFI. In May 2022, they wrote a blank check TotalEnergies for eight billion dollars, it is the second largest financier of fossil energy in the world, so it is the bank of a world that is burning, of a world that is dying . »

Other operations to come

The Tilenga and EACOP projects of TotalEnergies in Tanzania and Uganda involve more than 400 oil drilling wells and 1,400 km of pipeline through, in particular, a classified natural park and on the edge of Lake Victoria, a source of fresh water for 40 million people. In addition to the impact on the planet, it is the impact on local communities that Zizane denounces: ” Opposition to the project is strongly suppressed there in Uganda and Tanzania, which are authoritarian regimes with which TotalEnergies works. These practices that they have over there, we will never have them here, and human rights are not something that is on the menu, and even less for oil. »

► To read also: Contested project of the oil group TotalEnergies: what reality in Uganda and Tanzania? (Investigation)

The activists claim to want to multiply the operations coup d’brilliance as long as TotalEnergies and its partners do not give up. This Friday, 14 activists were arrested by the police for their action in front of BNP Paribas.

► To read also: United Kingdom: no Extinction Rebellion punch action in 2023 but a big demonstration