tense climate around ecology

On March 25, in Sables-d’Olonne, two activists from the NGO for the defense of the oceans Sea Shepherd are chased through the streets of the city and then violently beaten. According to the NGO, their attackers only escape after spotting a surveillance camera. Fishermen accuse Sea Shepherd of working to limit fishing in certain areas to protect wildlife.

Still in western France, almost two years to the day after her car wheel was unbolted following the broadcast of a report denouncing the excesses of agro-industry in Brittany, Breton journalist Morgan Large, again just suffered the same sabotage: “ I had to do 200 meters, and I said to myself: “Oh my! There’s something weird, it’s making noise.” I stopped quite quickly, after a kilometer. And the mechanic, when he lifted my car, he showed me that the wheel was moving by hand. He said to me: “But you’re losing a wheel!“”

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Two weights, two measures

As two years ago, the journalist filed a complaint: “ I was very surprised. I said: “No but it’s not true it’s not going to start again”. » In the neighborhood, Morgan large says that these are not isolated facts: “ There is a very worrying climate that targets the media and elected officials. I am worried about freedom of expression. » And like all the victims of this violence, she denounces a certain impunity from which her attackers would benefit.

This double standard, Marine Tondelier, the national secretary of the Europe Ecology-The Greens (EELV) party, also denounces it. While planning a trip to Lot-et-Garonne on March 28, the boss of the Greens also suffered serious threats. In a press release, the president of the department’s chamber of agriculture says he wants to defend his ” fief “:” Don’t come to us, it’s going to be bad » he writes.

The complacent authorities

And beyond the farmers, Marine Tondelier calls into question the authorities who, she says, only very rarely condemn these acts, while they use a criminalizing vocabulary to speak of environmentalists. Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior, describes for example as ” ecoterrorists » protesters against the mega-basinsthese giant water reserves to guarantee a few farmers to be able to irrigate their fields but criticized from an environmental point of view.

“ I consider that Gérald Darmanin, what he does, by galvanizing the crowds on this line of eco-terrorism, is dangerous because he stirs up a kind of unjustified, irrational, sometimes conspiratorial, post-truth hatred and he feeds that “, considers Marine Tondelier who notes an upsurge in violence against environmental activists. ” It is extremely dangerous because there will end up being a death. »

Environmental activists are not exempt from criticism either. Violence is also on their side. During the rally against the mega-basins, if there were 200 wounded among the demonstrators, including 40 serious, there were indeed also 47 gendarmes affected.

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Dialog not possible

Faced with environmentalists ready to do battle, Sophie Ollitrault, director of research in political science, explains that there are often defenders of agribusiness, supported by the State: “ These are often quite powerful lobbies and lobbies or quite powerful interest groups and environmentalists challenge them and often quite frontally. »

Farmers, fishermen, hunters, supporters of a system of thought where man dominates nature and exploits it thoroughly, a productivist system that is less and less tenable in the face of climate change, therefore face ecologists who advocate the contrary sobriety and want to give back space to nature. Two opposing visions.

” What is quite worrying for democracy today is that ultimately all these different interest groups can no longer get along and can no longer talk to each other. So they act. In different illegalities, but illegalities all the same “, laments the researcher.

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