Demonstration to preserve the climate, illustration – Francisco Seco / AP / SIPA
A few thousand people demonstrated this Sunday in Paris for “a real climate law”, on the eve of the examination in the Assembly of the government project resulting from the Citizen’s Convention for the Climate (CCC), criticized for its “lack of ambition ”.
More than 180 gatherings of the same type were planned across France in order to “revive the citizen dynamic”, according to Elodie Nace, from Alternatiba, one of the organizing movements. Dozens of NGOs, unions and parties had called for demonstrations, in particular to ask deputies to “improve” the government text.
Several parliamentarians present
Several parliamentarians were present at the start of the Parisian procession including the leader of rebellious France Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the president of Generation Ecology Delphine Batho, the former LREM deputy Cédric Villani. Behind a head banner “For a real climate law Stop blah blah” the demonstrators began to march chanting in particular: “so-so-solidarity, with the citizens, of the CCC!” “.
Many members of the Climate Convention, an unprecedented participatory democracy exercise convened by Emmanuel Macron from which the government’s “climate and resilience” law has emerged, have also joined the movement.
A meaningless text
“There are no possible negotiations with the climate, it’s a race against time,” said the director and environmental activist Cyril Dion, who was “guarantor” of the CCC before denouncing the translation of his proposals. by the executive, which “absolutely does not allow France to keep its objectives” in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
#MarcheForClimat : some images of the Parisian procession on this Sunday March 28 pic.twitter.com/lZyJn1b1DH
– Olivier Juszczak (@OlivierJuszczak) March 28, 2021
The first gatherings also took place in the regions, such as in Saint-Etienne, where nearly 400 people marched behind a banner “Climate emergency, there is still time to act”. The government law is “so downward that it no longer makes sense,” said Bénédicte, a protester, for example.
Barbara Pompili approves the marches
But the Minister of Ecological Transition, Barbara Pompili, for her part defended the text once again on Sunday, assuring France Inter that it would remain as “one of the greatest laws of the five-year term”. “The change of dimension, we will see it in all the moments of our life”, assured the minister. “I continue to fight to have the most ambitious measures possible,” she continued, saying “hope” that parliamentarians could still vote certain “advances”.
Asked about the demonstrations against her text, she said that “the climate marches, it is very good that they exist”. “I am happy that this concern is still there.”