Extinction Rebellion activists break into Arkema chemical factory

Activists from the Extinction Rebellion and Youth for Climate collectives entered a chemical factory of the Arkema company in Oullins-Pierre-Bénite, in the Rhône, on Saturday March 2 at the start of the afternoon, before being quickly blocked and evacuated from the site by the police. Eight people were arrested, indicates the prefecture.

In a video posted on the Extinction Rebellion YouTube account, we see at least fifty people dressed in white overalls, some masked, cut a section of the fence surrounding the site and enter inside the factory, before the intervention of the police forces. The Rhône prefecture counted around a hundred participants in total. Extinction Rebellion claims nearly 400. Tags “Arkemagouilles”, “Producer of eternal pollutants”, “Arkemassassins” have been registered on the portal of one of the site’s entrances.

On the social network “strongly condemn the violent actions of Extinction Rebellion against the Arkema site” and bring his “support for site teams”. The director of the Arkema production site in Oullins-Pierre-Bénite, Pierre Clousier, “sentenced” he also did this action. Questioned on BFMTV, he believes that it “doesn’t rhyme with anything” and don’t understand “that we can intervene like this on a chemical site in the Lyon region”. Pierre Clousier recalls that the site has “teams on site 24 hours a day, who are there to manage security […] Now, when we have events of this type, we must be vigilant.”

In May 2023, around ten associations and alleged victims took Arkema to court. They accuse the Oullins-Pierre-Bénite factory of releasing PFAS, eternal, toxic pollutants into the Rhône, adjoining the site. The courts rejected this environmental referral in November 2023.