The left unites against the dissolution of the Earth Uprisings

The left has found fuel against Emmanuel Macron and his government. After having failed to prevent the pension reform despite 14 days of mobilization and a parliamentary guerrilla campaign led by La France Insoumise (LFI), the dissolution of the collective “The Uprisings of the Earth” (SLT) allows it to bounce back. Announced in March by Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, after the violent demonstrations in Sainte-Soline, the dissolution of the group which presents itself as a collective was confirmed this Wednesday in the Council of Ministers by a decree.

The Minister of the Interior spoke of a “major role in the design, dissemination and legitimization of violent modes of operation”. “It is not freedom of expression or freedom of demonstration that is in question, it is not more ideas that are sanctioned, it is the repeated use of violence against property, against people who has been renewed on several occasions in recent weeks,” defended government spokesman Olivier Véran.

“Authoritarian drift” “intimidation” “repression”

In a rare unanimous impulse, the left did not have the same reading of this dissolution. Between accusations of “authoritarian drift” by Emmanuel Macron and the government, “undermining freedom of ociation”, “intimidation” or even “repression”, critics have rocketed. They came from the leaders of the various left-wing parties, certain NGOs, personalities and ociations.

Present in Paris, Greta Thunberg also provided her support, while an appeal was filed before the Council of State. “The government does not have a solid legal basis to dissolve the Earth Uprisings,” one of the collective’s lawyers, Me Raphaël Kempf, told AFP.

If the practices of SLT, which Gérald Darmanin describes as “eco-terrorist”, are not unanimous within the left and the environmental sphere, the government is accused, with this dissolution, of “masking” its “climate inaction and give in to pressure from the right, the extreme right and the FNSEA. “The repression of the environmental movement, as authoritarian as it is absurd, cannot mask the denial by Emmanuel Macron and his government of a model that destroys the very conditions of life! “, denounced on Twitter the former environmental candidate for the presidential Yannick Jadot.

Continuity?

The executive is accused of having political ecology in its sights. In parallel with this dissolution, several activists and activists were arrested and placed in police custody on Tuesday in the investigation into the action carried out against the Lafarge cement factory in Provence at the end of 2022. “I still have the impression that it there are oversized means that are put in place, of repression, surveillance and intimidation”, denounced on Public Senate the national secretary of the Greens, Marine Tondelier, in reaction to the arrest of an activist of his party who denies having been present at the Lafarge cement plant.

“The question that is asked today is the freedom that exists in our country to oppose this government”, pointed out for her part the president of the LFI group in the National embly, Mathilde Panot. For the left and for LFI in particular, there is a form of continuity because it accuses the government of “authoritarian drift” since the pension reform.

“The French sensitive to the ecological cause do not necessarily support these forms of activism which intervene outside the electoral framework. But this decision to dissolve the Earth Uprisings can also reinforce the image of an increasingly authoritarian power,” warns Bruno Jeanbart, vice-president of OpinionWay.