Greenpeace members partially repainted an Air France plane parked at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport in Roissy on

Friday

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Alain JOCARD / AFP

Around 9 a.m. this Friday, nine members of Greenpeace climbed the fence of the tarmac at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport in Roissy.

Equipped with a roller mounted on a huge pole, they were deployed around an Air France Boeing 777 and partially repainted green for ten minutes.

The aircraft parked on the ground had no passengers on board.

By this action, they intended to illustrate the “greenwashing” - “écoblanchiment” in French - is the fallacious use, according to them, of arguments relating to good ecological practices.

Standing on a wing, several activists deployed placards which read: "Is there a pilot to save the climate?"

”Or“ the solution: fewer planes ”.

Climate bill: "an empty shell"

The air transport gendarmerie quickly intervened to question the activists.

Some, perched on the roof or the wing, refused to go down.

"We are here today to denounce the" greenwashing "of the government on the issues of regulation and reduction of air traffic and the lack of ambition of the climate and resilience bill" which is "an empty shell", declared Sarah Fayolle, transport campaign manager at Greenpeace France.

"The government is promoting the green plane as the miracle solution to make the sector compatible with the climate crisis," she added.

The climate bill, which incorporates certain proposals from the Citizen's Climate Convention, will be debated in the Assembly at the end of March and in a special committee from Monday.

Go further, so as not to "continue as before"

In a statement, Greenpeace asked the deputies to go further, so as not to "continue as before, without calling into question a development model based on unlimited traffic growth and unsustainable for the climate".

The NGO also asks that the State support the retraining of employees in the sector.

Hit hard by the effects of the health crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the aviation sector has seen its traffic collapse, leading in its wake to an unprecedented social crisis.

At Charles-de-Gaulle airport, this threat weighs on some 90,000 direct jobs at the leading European airport.

A new inter-union mobilization is scheduled for March 18.

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