It is 5 a.m. on Tuesday April 26 when Camille* joins a small group of activists in the center of Libourne (Gironde). The 30-year-old got up early to stick hundreds of colorful posters on the walls of the city, which she put up while trying to avoid the surveillance cameras. “Here begins the resistance”, “We can win”, “Private jets stopped!” punctuate the signs, all concluded with the same instruction: “Join the local struggles!” For its first wild posting action, the collective Non at Saint-Emilionnais airport is delighted: none of its members has been arrested by the police. And the posters will serve as a “booster shot for our fight”, rejoices Camille, who has been fighting since last fall for the outright abandonment of the Artigues-de-Lussac aerodrome extension project – near of the Saint-Emilion vineyard – which would have enabled the development of business aviation in the region.
More than 600 kilometers away, a few hours later on April 26, Fanche Rubion is preparing to take the stage in the town hall square of Langoat, in Brittany. The goal ? Act out the fictitious factory farming trial in front of more than 200 people and the city’s elected officials. With several local associations, this retired National Education created for the occasion the Collective against the Langoat pig factory, targeting the extension project of a pigsty which would make it possible to raise 22,500 animals each year. “This Tuesday was a bit like the birth certificate of our common collective, but we are not going to stop there”, warns the sixty-year-old, delighted with the echo of her action in the local press. On the same day, in Paris, the environmental association Resistances locales erected a wall in front of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, tagged with the slogan “Ministry closed, let’s take back the land”, while a dozen similar actions took place in Essonne against the concreting of agricultural land, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence against the destruction of a forest, in Avignon, Grenoble, Montpellier or Strasbourg against new road projects…
These scattered and multiple demonstrations were all initiated two days after the second round of the presidential election at the call of local collectives and national organizations such as Attac, Solidaires, Youth for Climate or Les Amis de la Terre. But how to develop the logistics of such a mobilization, count and publicize the dozens of actions on the territory? This is the mission given to Terres de Lutte, one of the coordinators of the day of April 26th. Officially launched last September, the collective’s role is “to equip local struggles and make them visible”, in order to “create a common narrative around them and have a more direct impact on policies at the national level”, summarizes Chloé Gerbier, co-founder.
“Great accelerator”
Former lawyer of the association for climate justice Our business to all, the young woman now spends her weeks identifying local collectives, answering their legal questions, directing them to the right people, producing press kits or to organize liaison meetings, reports, workshops… “For example, we recently set up a webinar to explain how to anticipate, manage and protect ourselves from repression or pressure that can be exerted on citizens in struggle”, she illustrates. “The goal is really to put oil in the wheels of something that already exists,” adds Victor Vauquois, co-founder and also former member of Notre affaires à tous. Engaged in various environmental movements, the activist says he is aware of “the enormous card to play on the question of the coalition of these struggles”. “By bringing together associations, but also unions, social movements, local elected officials, there is a kind of emulsion that creates sparks and brings together a lot of different people. And we duplicate the victories,” he argues.
On the map relayed by the media Reporterre and on which the association bases itself to identify local collectives – nearly 500 to date – around forty victories against polluting development projects have so far been recorded. “Media coverage via associations such as Terres de Lutte or the network of anti-airport extension struggles plays a big role,” says Camille, whose collective has grown from four people last September to “forty supporters”.
“The urgency is there”
On Land of Struggle website, any movement can access a “toolbox” listing the key stages in the organization of a collective, a media communication strategy or legal recourse. In the “Mobilize” tab, the association even dissects how to “dialogue and put pressure on elected officials”, create a petition, organize a rally, set up a ZAD or even organize actions of civil disobedience. “Indeed, these are means of struggle that sometimes work better than symbolic marches”, comments Léna, member of Terres de Lutte and former member of the Youth for Climate movement. “Once you have used all the remedies, you sometimes have to act more radically with such actions. When we talk about civil disobedience, we are simply talking about material damage, there are no other attacks. “, she specifies. “In many ecological associations, we can clearly see that there is a need to increase the balance of power”, adds Victor Vauquois, referring to the case of mega basins – these immense water retention basins which allow some farmers to water their land even in times of drought, and accused of drying up groundwater and waterways.
In Deux-Sèvres, between 5,000 and 7,000 anti-basin demonstrators gathered around these facilities last March at the call of several collectives, such as Terres de Lutte. The goal ? Express their dismay, in particular by putting certain irrigation systems out of harm’s way by dismantling pipes and pumps. “What pushed these good people in every respect, professors, engineers, insurers, to take this step? It’s that the urgency is there, and that we no longer have a choice” , insists Julien Le Guet, boatman in the Poitevin marshes and member of the Bassines non merci collective in Deux-Sèvres. The man readily admits it: since his fight has been supported by collectives such as Terres de Lutte, the fight “has changed”. “It corresponds to an important turning point: we have tripled our forces, boosted our media relays and our networks. We are no longer made of bits of string, there is something that is created with solid foundations”, image-t -he, also ensuring that “these local alliances are the beginning of a deeper movement”.
For Bruno Villalba, professor of political science at AgroParisTech and specialist in political ecology, these attempts at inter-collective coordination are not new. “We already saw it in the ecological movements of the 1970s, and this concept of convergence of struggles is also taken up in all militant circles”, he recalls. The strength of associations such as Terres de Lutte, on the other hand, would be due to the speed and regularity with which its members succeed in carrying out new joint actions. “For this, social networks have considerably changed the situation, especially since we also hang up on social struggles, such as feminism or intersectionality”, deciphers the researcher. The notion of climate collapse would also have lastingly linked these fragments of struggles. “There was a time when each organization was fighting for its particular claim, which could lead to conflicts or fractures. It’s a thing of the past: the urgency is now predominant”, adds Albert Ogien, director of research emeritus at the CNRS and specialist in extra-institutional political protest movements. “It’s a fundamental movement, a change of strategy: the activists are using all possible resources. Because they believe that there are no more possible concessions, no more time to waste in classic demonstrations.”
Political commitment
To carry their claims, the militants are even ready to commit themselves politically, like Alma Dufour. Climate activist and former campaign manager for the Friends of the Earth association, the 30-year-old will be the candidate of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) in the legislative elections of the 4th district of Seine-Maritime. Widely involved with various collectives to fight against the extension of Amazon warehouses, she enjoyed working with Terres de Lutte: “It allows you to raise a subject in the media, to seek funding. We are no longer a simple local struggle, but a hard core fighting a common enemy. It creates a story that holds up over time, and that makes you want to get involved.” An impression widely shared by Camille, who indicates that the common struggle would have boosted the desire of some “to engage politically for Nupes” in her collective. And this, even if Terres de Lutte does not officially belong to any political movement. Of the 68 mobilizations studied in the report The Davids Organize Against Goliath – published in November 2021 and carried out under the impetus of Terres de Lutte, Notre affaires à tous and the association for the defense of the oceans and the climate ZEA – the local sections of the left-wing or environmental parties participated in the mobilizations of the collectives in 28 cases.
*Name has been changed.