While environmental activists were arrested four months after the intrusion on a Lafarge factory site, the Earth Uprisings collective calls for “support of those arrested” and denounces the demonization of their fight.
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A rally in support of the 17 environmental activists arrested after an intrusion into the premises of Lafarge (Eure) will take place Tuesday April 9 at 6 p.m. in Rouen (Seine-Maritime) in front of the courthouse, as well as in Levallois-Perret (Hauts- de-Seine) in front of the premises of the SDAT (anti-terrorist sub-directorate), we can read in a press release shared by the Uprisings of the Earth on their X account.
“We call for support for those arrested and indicted today for their participation in the national action campaign against Lafarge and the world of concrete. We call for continued mobilization to defend land and water”specifies the press release signed by around 80 organizations including Attac France, the Uprisings of the Earth, Greenpeace Rouen and Terres de struggles.
Monday April 8, seventeen environmental activists were arrested in Normandy and Seine-Saint-Denis by police officers from the anti-terrorist sub-directorate (Sdat), four months after the intrusion of around a hundred activists into the premises of the Lafarge cement manufacturer in Val-de-Reuil (Eure). In the press release, supporters of those arrested recall that “the wave of arrests” this Monday “aims the intervention, for around ten minutes, of around a hundred people on a Lafarge site in Val-de-Reuil with paint and expanding foam” early December 2023.
“Crush” environmental movements
An intervention that took place as part of a broader mobilization: “These arrests follow the campaign of actions against Lafarge and the world of concrete initiated by more than 200 environmental organizations […] This campaign mobilized thousands of people and resulted in around fifty simultaneous actions from December 9 to 12, 2023. […] on dozens of Lafarge sites and other concrete plants occurring mainly in France but also in Switzerland, Belgium and Germany.”.
Activists say the arrests are evidence of a “the government’s stubbornness in crushing by force the growth of environmental movements, as well as the resistance that it fails to channel in the face of economic exploitation”. Environmental organizations deplore “the recurring use of anti-terrorism means to specifically demonize mobilizations which threaten the interests of industrial lobbies”.
