Paris (AFP)
Activists of Extinction Rébellion occupied Monday morning two sites of the cement manufacturers Lafarge and Cemex (subsidiary of a Mexican group) in Paris to denounce the impact of the construction industry on the environment and global warming, noted l AFP.
A few hundred activists have violently invested these neighboring sites on the banks of the Seine in the 15th arrondissement for this operation called "End of building sites". They blocked the exit of the concrete mixer trucks to feed the construction sites in progress, sprinkling them with paint and painting on them slogans like "The cement lies", "Leave the sand to the sea" or "1 ton of cement = 900 kg of CO2 ".
Equipped with climbing equipment, some deployed banners from the top of the storage towers, "criminal cement companies" or a huge "STOP", while others held up signs "If it were a country concrete would be the world's 3rd polluter "or" Concrete = 8% of global CO2 emissions ".
Employees, whom activists sought to raise awareness about the harmful effects on the environment of their sector of activity, took videos on their cellphones or photographed themselves with activists in a friendly atmosphere.
A dozen CRS couriers arrived on the scene, without immediately intervening, while activists multiplied happenings or interventions by specialists in town planning or ecological construction, explaining the possibilities and advantages of materials such as straw, wood or Earth.
In a text read in public, activists said they wanted to "occupy a place symbol of the ecological disaster of which this economic sector and the public authorities are guilty" and denounced the fact that "the vast majority of industrialists in the sector have an irresponsible policy ". They also denounced the proximity according to them of the construction sector with the public authorities and the attitude of the government on the climatic emergency: "We are tired of this ecology of facade which makes itself accomplice of the catastrophe in progress".
© 2020 AFP