One month before the first round of the presidential election in France, a subject seems far from the concerns: the climate. However, IPCC scientists have once again warned of the climate situation in an alarming new report published on February 28. Thousands of people took to the streets this Saturday in France, placards in hand and pro-environment slogans, to try to impose the ecological question in the debates around the election.
According to the organizers, nearly 150 of these steps, called “Look up” in reference to the film don’t look up, a metaphor for the climate crisis that was a hit on Netflix, took place across France. They were supported by more than 450 NGOs, associations or other collectives. Some political figures, especially on the left, were present at the march, such as Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris and candidate of the Socialist Party.
The candidate of EELV, the ecological party, Yannick Jadot, also shared images of the demonstration on his Twitter account, as did Jean-Luc Mélenchon, candidate of La France insoumise.
“In France in 2022, the greatest threat that humanity has ever known is passed over in silence in the middle of an election period, when our future is at stake. (…) Let’s not let our rights and our future remain hostage to those who are leading us to disaster. (…) With their irresponsible passivity, governments tell us that nothing more can be done. This is untrue,” the organizers wrote in a “unit call“.
Protesters hold a banner during a ‘Look up’ march, calling on presidential candidates to address the climate emergency.
(Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP)
“We want to bring an ecology connected to social issues,” said Elodie Nace, spokesperson for Alternatiba and ANV-COP21, two of the organizing movements. “The total absence of the climate in the electoral debate seems quite dramatic to us.”
1.5% of speaking time in the media
According to a “climate barometer” set up by the NGOs carrying out the “Case of the Century” legal action, which obtained a condemnation from the State for its unfulfilled climate commitments, “climate issues have occupied 1.5% of speaking time in the media”, over the last week studied (February 28 to March 6). A figure down on the previous week (2.8%).
Protesters say the election campaign is largely absent, less than two weeks after the warning from UN climate experts and a month before the presidential election.
(Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP)
“While the war in Ukraine has obviously focused media attention and rightly so, it should be emphasized that this minimal treatment of the climate emergency was already in place before the outbreak of the conflict”, underline for their part the organizers of the “Look up”.
Another mobilization for the climate is planned between now and the presidential election, on March 25, at the call this time of youth movements within the framework of the “global strikes” initiated by the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.