Why the very term ecoterrorism is debated

• The statement did not go unnoticed.

  "About forty people on the ultra-left were spotted in this demonstration [in Sainte-Soline] with operating methods that fall under, I'm not afraid to say, 'ecoterrorism'", said Gérald Darmanin, after the clashes between the police and demonstrators on October 29 in Deux-Sèvres.

• “No, the demonstration in Sainte-Soline is not ecoterrorism, argues Dominique Bourg, philosopher of ecology, making the difference between environmental activists and the black blocks present on the spot.

  An ecological protest is non-violent by definition.

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• The term is "an exaggerated interpretation of what happened in the 1990s in the United States", he explains.

After the environmental demonstration in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres) against the construction of "mega basins" of water, political figures took up the case.

In a controversial statement, Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, denounced the clashes which pitted the police against demonstrators.

"About forty people on the ultra-left were spotted in this demonstration with operating methods which are, I'm not afraid to say, 'ecoterrorism'", declared Gérald Darmanin during a press conference on October 31.

A choice of term considered "outrageous", in particular by the Attac association which participated in the action and which sees in it a "dangerous drift of criminalization of social and ecological movements".

The comments were also deemed "scandalous" on Twitter by François Gemenne, political scientist at the University of Liège, professor at Sciences po Paris and main author of the latest IPCC report.

"The use of the term" ecoterrorism "seems completely inconsistent and irresponsible to me," he said on France Inter on November 1.

Since 2012, 1,700 environmental defenders have been murdered around the world, one every two days: that's terrorism.

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What happened on Saturday October 29?

As reported by AFP present on the spot, violent clashes broke out with the 1,500 gendarmes mobilized when demonstrators wanted to enter the site, which was forbidden to access.

Some of them succeeded before being repelled.

Elected officials present at the demonstration said they had been "struck", a photographer from the Agency saw the Green MP Lisa Belluco "molested".

A pipe was severed on Sunday.

In the end, around sixty gendarmes were injured, including 22 seriously according to the Ministry of the Interior, and around sixty demonstrators were injured, five of whom were hospitalized, according to the organizers of the demonstration.

The prefect of the department had denounced, on Saturday, the presence of "400

profiles and very violent activists", as well as "throwing molotov cocktails, mortar fire, powerful explosives, projectiles".

The National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor's Office, competent in terrorism matters, has not taken up the case.

A serious disturbance to public order

In France, acts of terrorism are defined in the Penal Code by article 421-1.

These are offenses committed intentionally, in relation to an individual or collective enterprise, with the aim of seriously disturbing public order through intimidation or terror.

They can, among other things, take the form of voluntary attack on life, the integrity of persons or destruction, degradation and deterioration.

On France Info, the prefect of police of Paris, Laurent Nunez explained on October 31 that there are "a few dozen individuals who are followed for violent radicalization, including in movements defending causes they say ecologists” in France.

"For some of them, we can call it ecoterrorism," he says, adding that it was a term used by the intelligence services.

" Civil disobedience "

An opinion that Dominique Bourg, philosopher of ecology and co-author of

, does not share .

“The answer is immediate and obvious: no, the Sainte-Soline demonstration is not ecoterrorism, he argues, making the difference between environmental activists and the

present on the spot.

An ecological protest is non-violent by definition.

Black

come to demonstrations to oppose the police.

The word terrorism has a very specific meaning: how did ecologists terrorize people?

The punctured pipeline is "effectively a degradation of someone else's property, but it is not terrorism".

Contacted, the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor's Office clarified that “Article 322-1 of the Penal Code defines the offenses of degradation, destruction and Article 421-1 provides that these offenses may be aggravated by the circumstance of terrorism.

The facts are therefore the same, it is the intention that changes”.

Asked about the nature of the procedures described as “eco-terrorists” and about the profile of the perpetrators of these acts, the Ministry of the Interior has not responded for the time being.

"When Gérald Darmanin starts talking about terrorism for actions that are miles away from terrorism, he incites all people who take these things seriously to violence, further believes Dominique Bourg.

It is very serious to have said that.

He wants to pass off civil disobedience as terrorism.

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The FBI seized on the term

In 2002, the FBI gave a definition of ecoterrorism, through the voice of the head of the domestic terrorism section.

It defined an act of ecoterrorism as "the use or threat of use of violence in a criminal manner, against innocent victims or property, by an ecologically oriented group, for political reasons related to the environment or aimed at a audience beyond the target”.

In it, he was referring to direct actions, such as the sabotage of equipment or fires, carried out by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF).

For example, in 1998, ELF claimed responsibility for the burning of several buildings at a ski resort in Colorado in the name of protecting the natural habitat of the lynx.

A definition to qualify

But this qualification of eco-terrorist is debated in the United States.

Of 1,069 criminal incidents associated with environmental and animal rights defenders recorded between 1970 and 2007 in the country, 17% can be described as "terrorist" acts, point out the authors of a 2012 report published by the consortium of studies on terrorism Start, which depends on the Department of Homeland Security of the United States.

To assert this, they rely on the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) of the University of Maryland, the difference between non-terrorist criminal incidents and terrorist attacks being that "the use of violence against property results in permanent damage,” they write.

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But qualify the authors, "until now, attacks by radical environmental and animal rights groups have been very largely aimed at causing property damage rather than injuring or killing humans".

The results of interviews with activists also suggest that they "seem to carefully weigh the costs and benefits of illegal protests".

In 2014, two researchers again underlined in an op-ed in the

that “despite the radicalization underway within the movement, the vast majority of (…) activists and “groups” are not involved in terrorist acts”.

A 2019 investigation by investigative news outlet Intercept also questioned whether a "movement that never killed anyone had become the FBI's #1 domestic terrorism threat."

Disobedience, occupation, sabotage

This definition of the FBI “has no object” argues Dominique Bourg.

For him, ecoterrorism does not exist.

The word comes from "an exaggerated interpretation of what happened in the 1990s in the United States with the Earth First movement", whose activists later founded ELF.

These activists fought against the felling of trees, in particular by occupying them.

But also by planting spikes at cutting height.

In 1987, a lumberjack, George Alexander, was seriously injured when his chainsaw hit a spike.

For Dominique Bourg, this is the “only violent moment in ecology”.

However, he defends, “the goal was not to terrorize, but to dissuade from cutting, it is not the same thing.

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Dominique Bourg distinguishes three levels in environmental actions that may be illegal: civil disobedience, which is “intrinsically non-violent”, “without material degradation”.

"It's partially infringing one or more rights to generally improve the state of rights," he explains.

Included in this framework, for example, is the stalling of portraits of Emmanuel Macron, the objective of which was to highlight the climate inaction of the French government.

“We then go up a notch with the occupation of places to prevent development from taking place, as with the areas to be defended”, he continues.

The third form of action that exists in France is ecosabotage, that is to say “the destruction of installations which you think are destroying the climate”.

Miscellaneous facts

Deux-Sèvres: Gérald Darmanin wants "no ZAD to settle", more than 1,000 gendarmes on site

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