"We are all dropout portraits": more than 200 people gathered Wednesday in front of the TGI in Paris, before the start of the hearing of activists who won portraits of Emmanuel Macron in Paris, said a journalist AFP.
Praise of civil disobedience
Eight environmental activists and a videographer, aged between 23 and 36, are tried Wednesday afternoon in the 16th chamber of the Paris Criminal Court for "robbery" after participating in February in stalling portraits of Emmanuel Macron in town halls of the capital. "This morning, there is a mix between determination, because motivated to explain why we must return to civil disobedience on environmental issues, and a little apprehension because it remains a trial," said Cécile Marchand, 24 years.
According to the activist, a worker in the Friends of the Earth association, "this is not our trial but the trial of Macron's climate inaction, we have nothing to do here". "Today, we must engage in the street, it is no longer the time of expertise and advocacy," said Jean-Francois Julliard, executive director of Greenpeace France, surrounded by nine defendants and in front of demonstrators, all with a "Stop Climate Inaction" sign. Cécile Duflot, director of Oxfam France, also emphasizes that it is "no longer the time to warn but to take action to make an impression," while wondering if "the judges will understand what the leaders do not understand not ?"
A new portrait of Macron unhooked in Saint-Ouen
While the hearing began early in the afternoon, a dozen activists have won a portrait of Emmanuel Macron at the town hall of Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis), under the incredulous eye of a few employees, observed an AFP journalist, before the portrait was wrapped up and taken away by an activist on a bicycle and then "hidden in an unknown place". "This action is very important in view of the trial, first to support the defendants and then always to highlight the void of Macron's environmental policy," said Sandy Olivar Calvo and Marie Cohuet, both of 24, who are not at their first stall.
Since the launch of its civil disobedience campaign "Let's Get Macron", the non-violent Action COP21 movement (ANV-COP21) claims the "requisition" of 133 official portraits of the president. In addition, 57 people have been prosecuted in correctional law, mainly for "robbery in meeting", an offense for which the maximum penalty incurred is five years imprisonment and 75,000 euros fine. The first trial of "dropouts" was held late May in Bourg-en-Bresse. An environmental activist was sentenced to a fine of 250 euros and a fine of five suspended on 12 June. Twelve other trials of "dropouts" are planned until September 2020.