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Since October 7, the movement Extinction Rebellion (XR) calls for action in several countries to denounce the inaction of leaders in the face of climate change. Who is this group and can it "move" the world?
" This October, we declare the International Rebellion for the living, and against the systems that destroy it! We all call on the rebels to converge on national capitals to block the dominant economic, political and administrative structures. "The message delivered on the Facebook page of the movement says a lot about its determination: for two weeks, the ecologists of Extinction Rebellion , or XR, organize actions in about sixty cities of the world, including blockages.
A recent movement
Born just a year ago in the United Kingdom, Extinction Rebellion now has more than 100,000 activists in 70 countries, including more than 8,000 in France. Activists believe in non-violent civil disobedience actions. They have three demands: recognition of the gravity and urgency of current ecological crises and honest communication on the subject, the immediate reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to achieve carbon neutrality in 2025, through a reduction consumption and a planned energy descent, the creation of a citizens' assembly responsible for deciding the measures to be put in place to achieve these objectives and guaranteeing a fair and equitable transition. In France, a demand is made in addition: the immediate stop of the destruction of the oceanic and terrestrial ecosystems, at the origin of a massive extinction of the alive world.
The Extinction Rebellion logo is a black hourglass inside a Earth. It symbolizes the little time that remains to certain species before disappearing since; according to the United Nations, one species disappears every 8 minutes. " Now it is about limiting the damage, " told RFI an activist on October 6. " We're going right in the wall. We have two years to take a radical turn .
More and more " rebels "
The first action of Extinction Rebellion dates from November 2018 when thousands of environmental activists of all ages block the main bridges of London. Since then, the movement has grown steadily, beyond the boundaries of traditional environmental movements such as Greenpeace where you can be a member without being able to participate in major actions.
In France, the blocking of the Sully bridge in June by 300 activists marks the beginning of XR. A sit-in violently dislodged by the police with tear gas.
" There is a certain confluence of circumstances," said RFI analyst Graeme Heyes, a sociologist, environmentalist and lecturer at the University of Aston in Birmingham. The movement has arrived at the right moment, that is to say at the same time as Greta Thunberg and the report of the IPCC gives us twelve years to change the situation. "
Extinction Rebellion has become a mass movement, action, but also discussion and reflection workshops, without leader or spokesperson, whose sources of inspiration go from Gandhi to the African-American civil rights movement. passing by the suffragettes.
Everyone who shares the values of XR can act to varying degrees. And this is what makes the movement so special, according to Graeme Heyes: Extinction Rebellion is placed in a grid of reading and action very familiar to the ecologist movement except that it involves a maximum number of citizens, many of whom have no activism liabilities.
In addition, notes the sociologist, the strategy of Extinction Rebellion is effective to continue: to set up sequences of mobilization followed by periods of pause.
The violence banished from the movement
" Nobody can believe that those who have the power today will do something to stop the ongoing disaster," said another activist during a mobilization in Paris. This system needs to be changed. "
And to do so, the actions are multiplying: invade a large shopping center in Paris, jump into the canal at the passage of the King of the Netherlands, chained to the rails, pay 3,000 liters of fake blood on the markets of the Trocadero in Paris, etc. With a slogan: all the mobilizations led by Extinction Rebellion must be non-violent, like other movements also advocating civil disobedience during blockages of polluting companies for example.
Pacific, therefore, but sometimes radical, the "rebels" of XR know the risks of their actions and know that they can even go to the prison cell (a sentence that has however never been stated so far). They all act openly. But their actions do not satisfy everyone.
" There is an instrumentalisation of the ecology by these violent groups and it is necessary to repress them very quickly, because it is a degradation of the image of the ecology, " said Ségolène Royal on France Inter last Monday. The former environment minister pointed out that these forms of militancy were " absolutely not " legitimate.
While voices are rising against Extinction Rebellion, the movement can be proud of having ensured that the British Parliament declares "the state of ecological emergency", and this without any violence. It remains to be seen whether these two weeks of global civil disobedience remain non-violent and, above all, whether they succeed in having an impact on the rulers.
Especially since a certain controversy swells around the financing of XR. The movement claims to be solely volunteer and operate with donations from individuals. The British branch, however, employ a hundred employees, according to The Guardian . On the French side, the "yellow vests" accuse Extinction Rebellion of being financed by oligarchs and protest against a double standard, two measures concerning police repression that saves XR.
Place du Châtelet in Paris, Tuesday 8 October.