a political setback for Gérald Darmanin

Gérald Darmanin had fought for the dissolution of the Earth Uprisings. The Council of State disavowed it on Thursday, November 9, by canceling its decree of dissolution. The highest administrative court in the country considers “that no provocation of violence against people can be attributed” to the environmentalist collective. Dissolution “does not constitute an appropriate, necessary and proportionate measure to the seriousness of the disturbances likely to cause public order”add the magistrates.

This seems like a setback for the Minister of the Interior, Gérlad Darmanin, who had made it a personal fight, going so far as to use the term “eco-terrorism”, as if he wanted to shock public opinion after the outbreak of violence around the famous mega-basins of Sainte-Soline, in Deux-Sèvres. The dissolution procedure of the Earth Uprisings is a long soap opera with twists and turns. This dissolution was first mentioned last March, then presented only three months later, in the Council of Ministers… before being suspended by an interim order on August 11 and, therefore, purely and simply canceled by the Council of Ministers. State today.

Enough to illustrate the difficulty for the government to properly frame its legal argument in the face of a collective, Les Soulèvements de la Terre, which is not formally declared to the public authorities, since it brings together several associations and unions. “Darmanin always wants to show that the more firm you are, the more it pays” said a minister, before concluding “He’s wrong this time.”

From the outset, and without surprise, the entire left welcomed this decision of the Council of State, La France insoumise speaking of “great victory for the rule of law”. MP Adrien Quatennens even went so far as to mock “the authoritarian drift of power that must be dissolved”. Environmentalists Sandrine Rousseau and Yannick Jadot remind us that we “does not dissolve an uprising.” The Interior Ministry, for its part, is trying to hide its embarrassment. “No comment” : this is the slogan repeated in all tones by Gérald Darmanin’s entourage Thursday afternoon.