They weren’t invited but still managed to get noticed. Environmental activists celebrated the centenary of TotalEnergies in their own way on Tuesday by unfurling a banner in front of the Palace of Versailles, where the hydrocarbon giant was organizing a private evening. After entering the area with the last tourists, at the end of the afternoon, three activists threw themselves into one of the pools on the waterfront, facing the building. They hung a banner there.
A little later, around fifty members of the Greenpeace, Alternatiba and Friends of the Earth associations tried to make themselves heard by the distinguished guests who were arriving slowly in cars with tinted windows to spend the evening at the castle. After attempting to approach the entrance, they were quickly pushed back by the police.
Fossil fuel profits singled out
“End of reign for oil and gas”, chanted the demonstrators, brandishing signs “Total guilty, State complicit”. “When it comes time to take stock, the history of TotalEnergies remains marked by a series of scandals,” argues Greenpeace in a press release, recalling the sinking of the tanker Erika in 1999 or the explosion of the AZF factory in 2001.
Greenpeace also accuses TotalEnergies, which reaped a record profit in 2023, of refusing “to change its model and continue to drill for ever more fossils to maximize its profits”.
“Versailles is really connoted as the reign of the all-powerful, it is not at all trivial”, underlined Lorette Philippot, spokesperson for Friends of the Earth, while Sasha Arfeuille considers it “important to denounce this century of neocolonial practices.
In the largest room of the castle
According to a security source, some 500 people were invited Tuesday evening by TotalEnergies for a reception at the Galerie des Batailles, the largest room in the castle. When contacted, the group’s management did not wish to confirm or deny the event, indicating that it did not communicate “on the private evenings of the company which is a private enterprise”. The Palace of Versailles has neither confirmed nor denied that this evening will take place either. The Minister for Industry and Energy, Roland Lescure, was invited to the event but declined the invitation according to his press service.
After this evening in the former residence of the kings of France, the TotalEnergies group will bring together its employees at the Porte de Versailles in Paris on Thursday. The very day of the anniversary of the birth of the old French Oil Company, March 28, 1924, under the leadership of Raymond Poincaré.
The group develops renewable energies but remains widely criticized by climate activists in the street and in court for continuing its investments in fossil fuels (gas and oil) despite the climate crisis.