A look at the surrounding streets, an explanatory leaflet left on the windshield, three manipulations on the valve… And that’s it. Sylvain* has a hand: in less than a minute, this 25-year-old biology student is able to deflate one or more SUV tires. Since September, he claims to have taken care of “250 to 260 cars” in his town of Hauts-de-Seine, including “107 in a single night”. The goal ? Draw the eye of motorists – and the media – to the “pollution caused” by these imposing vehicles. Taking up the graphic charter and mode of action of the British collective Tire Extinguisher (Tyre deflators), this environmental activist thus participated in the importation of the movement into France: week after week, similar actions were observed in the Paris region, in Lyon, Toulouse, or even in Hauts-de-France.
Tired of sorting his waste, consuming locally or participating in simple climate walks, Sylvain decided to opt for “civil disobedience”, he explains. In addition to his regular tire deflation, the activist recently joined a local branch of the environmental collective Extinction Rebellion, and participated with them “in several meetings and blockades”. He is not the only one. For months, various associations have been multiplying this type of action to denounce the immobility of governments and large companies in the face of climate change. On October 28, activists from the Last Renovation movement blocked the A6 in this way. Three days later, 27 of their comrades from Attac and Extinction Rebellion tried to break into Le Bourget airport in order “to prevent private jets from taking off”. And during the weekend of All Saints, 4,000 to 7,000 people demonstrated in Sainte-Soline, in the Deux-Sèvres, to block the progress of the construction project for the “mega-basins” – causing violent clashes with the forces of order.
“There is a rise in power of these actions and their radicalism, because the global ecological context has completely deteriorated”, analyzes Bruno Villalba, professor of political science at AgroParisTech and specialist in political ecology. It is difficult to know precisely the number of activists: the main networks claim several thousand members, and each action generates new recruitments. But for these militants, there is no longer any compromise possible. “In twenty years, when the consequences of global warming will be much heavier than today, the new generations will ask us why we have done nothing”, insists Lucas, member of Last renovation.
“We feel that something is happening: where previously there were only a few local struggles scattered over the territory, we now observe an almost systematic appeal by collectives and associations in the face of polluting projects”, deciphers Victor Vauquois, member of the ecological collective Lands of struggle. According to the media Reporterre, more than 480 “local struggles” have thus been identified in two years on the territory, for 66 “victories” announced against development projects considered “polluting” – like basins. “The action in Sainte-Soline is nothing new, and it is not a sign of radicalization of the green movement, believes Victor Vauquois. I would rather speak of a return to basics.”
“Acts proportional to the urgency felt”
The use of civil disobedience in the environmental struggle is indeed nothing new. “As early as the 1980s, a series of violent actions carried out by activists marked world summits, notes political scientist Eddy Fougier, a specialist in alterglobalism and protest movements. Violence is a means of making oneself known and possibly of to be listened to, in order to win the battle of public opinion.” The idea is already to carry out emblematic actions, designed to attract the cameras. In France, the man who understands this little game marks the spirits with his full mustache and his punches. After having distinguished themselves in the dismantling of a McDonald’s building site, José Bové and a handful of farmers tackled a greenhouse in the early 2000s, then fields where GMOs were grown. Condemnations fall, but do not cool the followers of civil disobedience. On the contrary.
In 2009, the failure of the COP15 negotiations in Copenhagen led to widespread questioning. “The general feeling is that French ecologists know how to speak, but not how to organize themselves”, sums up Nicolas Brusadelli, doctoral student in sociology at the University of Picardy. In response, new committed citizen collectives were created to fight against climate change, such as Alternatiba or its variant Action non-violente COP21 (ANV-COP21), specializing in the promotion of practices of civil disobedience. In early 2019, its activists took down portraits of Emmanuel Macron in town halls in Lyon, in the Bordeaux region and in Ain to be indignant at France’s climate inaction. All the recipes for civil disobedience are there: a message, a symbolic place, a punchy action.
Activists are all the more successful in attracting attention as the subject of global warming occupies a growing place in public opinion. In March 2019, the culmination of the marches for the climate, nearly 350,000 people marched according to the organizers in 220 different cities. Under the impetus of Greta Thunberg, militant vocations are born – often among very young demonstrators. But the young Swede, her Fridays for Future and her interpellation speeches deemed “too soft” seem to them now outdated, while the principles of non-violence advocated by Gandhi or Martin Luther King, long cited as models, are flake off. “Like many people around me, I started by marching, before turning to civil disobedience,” explains Zoé Mary, 26, spokesperson for ANV-COP21.
The Greenpeace or WWF model also seems dusty for these activists. “Their current modes of action are considered too weak, too institutional”, deciphers Bruno Villalba. “From now on, the demonstrators are in the immediate militant act, which they consider proportional to the urgency felt. They don’t care, moreover, to know if EELV or the Confédération paysanne will support them.” A change of which the historical associations are aware. Jean-François Julliard, director general of Greenpeace France, explains to L’Express that he has trained “between 5,000 and 10,000 people in non-violent action since 2018”. “People generally prefer to carry out actions of disobedience, because they observe that they have more impact”, he justifies.
“Aggregation of anger”
With social networks, getting involved has become almost easy. “From now on, all you have to do is launch a hashtag on social networks for a collective to get started”, summarizes Bruno Villalba. On the sites of the collectives, any Internet user can thus access various toolboxes listing the key stages in the creation of an association, a communication strategy or legal action. “What works is the complementarity of tactics. We first play the game of the law, then we communicate with the population, we invest in public consultations… When all that does not work, there remains civil disobedience”, explains Victor Vauquois, who specifies that this mode of action and its limits are subjects constantly debated within the collectives. “Not everyone always agrees. Groups complement each other.”
For Albert Ogien, the strength of these movements lies in their ability to communicate and coordinate. “More than 150 disparate collectives can thus conceive of themselves as a single organization during major common events, such as climate marches or the anti-basin demonstration”, comments the sociologist. A hitch that also makes these organizations vulnerable to unexpected arrivals: in Sainte-Soline, “400 black bloc profiles and very violent activists” would have joined the demonstration, according to the prefecture. An infiltration that does not surprise many people. “The black blocs use what is called the ‘cuckoo strategy’ to infiltrate social movements and pursue their own goals”, underlines Eddy Fougier. Like the social protests of recent years, environmental events are now struggling to curb the arrival of these newcomers to the field. “Like the trade unionists before them, the ecologists cannot do without these infiltrations. But they remain in the minority”, considers the former deputy Noël Mamère. “It’s the convergence of struggles”, analyzes Bruno Villalba, who recalls that a “mutual acculturation has always existed between ecological, anti-capitalist and anarchist movements.”
Could this “aggregation of anger” lead to an increase in violence from the environmental movement and its affiliates? “The ethical and political orientation of environmental activists is such that they are unlikely to use violence against living beings, explains Heather Alberro, lecturer in sustainable development at the University of Nottingham Trent. Going forward, we’re likely to see more and more desperate measures.” The significant presence of the police also risks derailing the situation, fears a member of the ANV-COP21 Toulouse network.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin created controversy by denouncing “eco-terrorism” after the events in Sainte-Soline. Words that raise eyebrows among activists and researchers, but which give an overview of the dialogue of the deaf already engaged between leaders and activists. “As long as the power tenses up and refuses any form of dialogue on the subject of the climate, the ingredients for escalation will be met”, considers Noël Mamère. This stiffening of the discussion exists, moreover, on both sides. “Before, we could have drinks with Greenpeace activists, even when they were trying to enter our nuclear power plants, laughs a senior officer, a former official well placed in the security of sensitive institutions. They are today more difficult to understand. The dialogue is complex”. More than to hope that it is not completely broken.