From Paris to Sydney, Extinction Rebellion mobilizes for the climate

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Mobilization of the Extinction Rebellion movement in the center of Paris, October 7, 2019. REUTERS / Christian Hartmann

The ecologist movement Extinction Rebellion launched Monday, October 7, two weeks of actions around the world to force governments to act against global warming.

In Paris, they set up tents, haystacks and plant bins and blocked the central district of Châtelet. No more cars pass, either on the square itself, in the neighboring streets or on the Croix aux Changes. The thousands of Extinction Rebellion activists who occupy the premises on Monday intend to stay at least for the week.

01h05 - At almost 1⃣0⃣hours of occupation on #Paris to #Chatelet, return to video on this beginning of the week for the October International Rebellion!
Join us ✊ # InternationalRebellion # rebelswithoutborders # ExtinctionRebelion #occupationparis #private #Rebelforlife pic.twitter.com/nbmAPm15YS

A young man describes in a megaphone a planet running to ruin:
extinction of species, soil exhaustion, desertification, rising water ... " Now it's about limiting damage, " concludes Ponyo. " We're going right in the wall. We have two years to take a radical turn . The slogans fuse, punctuated by bursts of applause.

Some, like Gaspard, took their day to participate in this mobilization. Suit-tie, he attached himself to a tray of plants. " No one can believe that those in power today will do anything to stop the ongoing catastrophe," he says. This system needs to be changed. Throughout the week, the activists of Extinction Rebellion intend to organize workshops and citizen assemblies, just to imagine this new system.

arrests

Similar actions have been carried out in some 60 cities around the world. In New York, where the symbolic bull of Wall Street was sprinkled with fake blood, 200 environmental activists dressed in black staged a funeral march for the victims of the climate catastrophe. "Block or die," could be read on a protest sign in Berlin.

The sculpture of the Wall Street bull is covered in fake blood during the Extermination Rebellion protest in New Yok on October 7, 2019. REUTERS / Mike Segar

In London, police arrested more than 270 people trying to block Westminster, the heart of power. In Amsterdam, some 100 activists were arrested after erecting tents in a street leading to the national museum. In Sydney, police forcibly evicted hundreds of people occupying a high street.

Arrests at Westminster Abbey but the Rebellion continues! We do not do this lightly but we act for life itself. #EverybodyNow #SolidarityNotSilence #InternationalRebellion pic.twitter.com/TOPGUleFjB

Everywhere, the same actions-shocks and the same slogan: non-violent civil disobedience to denounce the inaction of governments in the face of the climate crisis. " The time has come to put much stronger pressure measures into practice ," said a spokesman for the Extinction Rebellion movement in Madrid, saying that " only a massive global revolution ... can bring the necessary changes to our world. survival ".

Listen to the report: in Paris, Extinction Rebellion occupies the Châtelet district 08/10/2019 - by Christine Siebert Play