The showdown between the executive and the Earth Uprisings (SLT) will resume on Tuesday. The Council of State will examine an appeal filed by this environmentalist collective against the decree of dissolution, the beginning of a long legal battle.
The highest French administrative court was seized at the end of July according to an emergency procedure called “referred-suspension” by the SLT. This targets the decree of dissolution issued on June 21 by the government, which accuses the collective of “calling” for violence and “participating” in it. After having heard the parties, the Council of State should put its decision under advisement. A hearing on the merits must subsequently examine the legality of the decree of dissolution.
LFI and EELV join the appeal
Several associations and parties (including La France insoumise, EELV, Agir pour l’environnement, etc.) as well as hundreds of individuals have joined in the action of the Uprisings of the Earth.
The government announced its intention to dissolve this movement on March 28, a few days after violent clashes between gendarmes and opponents of the construction of water reservoirs in Sainte-Soline in Deux-Sèvres. In his decree, he affirms that “this group incites the commission of sabotage and material damage, including by violence”. He also criticizes it for playing “a major role in the design, dissemination and legitimization of violent operating methods in the context of contesting certain development projects”.
Assertions that the collective disputes, judging that the facts of which it is accused are “inoperative”, “materially inaccurate” or are not “attributable” to it. According to the SLT, “calls for civil disobedience” do not fall under “provocation to violence” and “cannot be legally qualified as violence”, “damage to property that does not endanger the life of others “. In general, the movement believes that its dissolution was “liberticidal because prejudicial to freedom of expression” and “freedom of association”.
The Uprisings also argue that they are not “a de facto group”, as the government maintains, but “a current of thought based on a vast movement, devoid of leaders or identified members”. Another argument of the lawyers of the collective: the rights of the defense were, according to them, ” flouted ” with an ” excessively compressed ” procedural deadline and the addition of new elements not communicated by the State ” in violation of the principle of adversarial proceedings “. For them, this procedure is “crucial” because it is the “first time that there has been the dissolution of such an important movement, with almost 150,000 people who publicly claim to be part of it”.