Bayonne (AFP)

"We do not have time to wait": Like Cécile and Pauline, environmental activists made the "conscious" choice to risk a trial and prison by collecting portraits of Emmanuel Macron from town halls, some of which were exhibited Sunday in Bayonne to protest against the G7.

Seven of the 128 portraits that the organizers claim to have "dropped out" as part of a campaign of civil disobedience since February were brandished during a "non-violent" march, organized by alternative movements and ecologists ANV COP 21, Alternatiba and Bizi to denounce "the climaticide policy" of the President of the Republic.

Among the activists present in Bayonne, Pauline Boyer, 36, says she won the portrait of Emmanuel Macron in the town hall of the 5th arrondissement of Paris, February 21.

Coming with a group of about fifteen "peaceful" activists from the nonviolent Action ANV COP21 movement ", faces discovered, this former employee of the pharmaceutical industry says to be" peacefully entered the premises "and" to have directed directly in the wedding hall to get the portrait ".

On September 11, she will be tried before the XVI Criminal Court of the TGI of Paris with other activists. "A lawsuit is not trivial, it's even stressful, but it's necessary because we do not have time to wait," she says, even though she finds it "surreal and mind-blowing."

She committed herself four years ago for the climate: "it is at this moment that I understood that it was necessary to speak of our future by doing salutary actions", explains Pauline, become today employee of the "movement citizen "Alternatiba.

A few weeks after her action in Paris, she spent nine hours in custody, "a day not very pleasant ..."

Pauline "knew that she might be prosecuted for robbery at a meeting", thus incurring five years' imprisonment and a 75,000 euro fine.

- "Not here to laugh" -

Since the beginning of the "Let's Get Macron" movement, 152 people have been auditioned and 94 detained. 74 searches took place and 57 trials are planned, details the organizers of the campaign.

Like Pauline, Cécile Marchand, employee of the NGO Les Amis de la Terre, participated in "dropouts", in the town halls of the 3rd, 4th and 5th districts of Paris, and will be judged on September 11th.

"The actions all went quietly because we conducted them peacefully." Only once, a "vigil interposed" but "we still could take the portrait," says the 24-year-old woman, originally from Roubaix (North).

A few days later, "we found ourselves in the office of the anti-terrorist brigade when we had only done civil disobedience," offends Cecile, who had already participated in actions of this type, in banks or in front of towers at La Défense.

For the trial, the young woman knows that she "will not be there to laugh" and apprehends "the media and personal exposure" but believes she had no "other choice".

She explains that her "speech has changed a lot" since the beginning of her commitment: "I realized that we needed to act more firmly and advocate more drastic measures".

Elodie Nace, Alternatiba's spokeswoman, also won a portrait of Macron. It was in Irissary (Pyrénées-Atlantique), near Biarritz, just before the start of the G7. "We know the risks but we assume them, we conduct our actions openly," claims the activist.

On June 12, during the first trial of "dropouts", six activists were fined, firm or suspended. Convictions on which the prosecution has appealed. On 26 June, three other activists were released in Strasbourg. According to Elodie Nace, 15 other trials of this type are planned.

© 2019 AFP