Stockholm (AFP)

Behind her baby face and her piercing gaze, she arouses as much hope as the controversy: the young Swedish Greta Thunberg, the face of the fight against global warming, became very young aware of what was happening around her.

Aged 16 today, "the daughter of" (her mother is an opera singer, her father a comedian turned producer), named for the Nobel Peace Prize 2019, has reached in less than a year to to make one's own name, well beyond Swedish borders.

She is now preparing to sail to New York on a sailboat heading to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' global climate summit on 23 September.

Her fight began at the sight of everyone a year ago, on August 20, 2018, when she started alone in front of the Swedish Parliament her first "school strike for the climate", with her eponymous sign that does not will leave more.

Sweden, far from the culture of the strike, was then in the middle of the election campaign for the legislative elections. At that time, the Swedish media still had little interest in the struggle of the teenager.

Since then, the girl, recognizable by her two long braids falling on her shoulders, made the front page of the biggest international newspapers and magazines, from Time Magazine to Vogue, and continued until very little to take up her quarters every Friday on the outskirts of Parliament. national.

"I intend to continue until Sweden complies with the Paris agreement," she told AFPTV in late 2018, in front of the institution.

His fight, dubbed "Fridays For Future", has since expanded considerably. From Sweden to Australia, from Europe to America, it has flourished on all continents, carried by some of the youth but not without attracting some criticism.

"You do not have to listen to us, we are just children after all," she joked during her visit to France in July, in the face of attacks calling into question its legitimacy to embody the fight against global warming.

- Family awareness -

It was at school when she was "eight or nine years old" that Greta Thunberg became interested in the climate: "my teachers told me that I had to save paper and turn off the lights - I told them asked why and they said that there is something called climate change "- which was being played out, tells the girl to AFP.

The one who is still a child has since stopped eating meat, drinking milk, buying new products - "unless necessary".

"These are just a few small changes in my daily life," she summarizes.

In the cozy and spacious family apartment nestled in the heart of Stockholm, family habits have also changed quickly.

Her mother Malena Ernman, her father Svante Thunberg, and her younger sister Beata became aware of the family's elder brother's struggle after her depression: haunted by the climate cause and the threats surrounding her, the girl fell ill to 11 years old, stopping feeding, going to school and talking, says his father.

His mother then stopped traveling around the world, he continues, limiting his movements to the Nordic countries and abandoning the plane to join the fight led by his daughter, who refuses to fly "because of the climate".

- "It was worth it"-

At 12, Greta Thunberg is diagnosed with Asperger's autism. "My brain works a little differently so I see the world from a different point of view, I see it mainly in black or white," she explains in the calm tone that characterizes her.

"I am very direct, I say things as they are, and when I decided to do something, I do it well." An attitude that connects to the syndrome and which she believes to make a force against the critics who say it manipulated.

The girl, educated until June last year in the ninth year (the equivalent of the third class in France), has often taken his distance courses this year because of his many trips.

This did not prevent her from showing excellent academic results. His worst rating? B (17.5 / 20), in sports and home economics. The teenager, however, announced that she would now take a sabbatical year.

"If I had not left school and traveled so much, I could get an A in all subjects, but it was worth it," she confessed in June, not without pride, to the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.

© 2019 AFP