More than 50,000 students are walking out across Quebec to express their “climate rage” this week. However, on Friday afternoon, in Montreal, only a few hundred people showed up for the large demonstration of the strike movement, far from the scale of the large gatherings of 2019.
“We are hotter than the climate! », “With us, in the street!” “, chanted the demonstrators in unison around 2 p.m., gathered at the Monument to Sir George-Étienne Cartier, in Mount Royal Park. Representatives of various student associations, both college and university, met there, participating in the appeal of Climate Rage, a coalition which presents itself as environmentalist and anti-capitalist.
“We have to stop treating the climate crisis as something secondary,” says Gabriel Bélisle, a bachelor’s student in environmental design at the University of Quebec in Montreal, whose student association is on strike this week.
Having come to demonstrate alongside his colleagues, he denounces the inaction of governments. “If we continue to do nothing, it is not only our few days of strike that will disrupt our school career, but all the consequences of climate change, which threaten to drastically change the world as we know it today.” today. »
At the time these lines were written, students continued to regroup, before marching in the streets of Plateau-Mont-Royal. Speeches by representatives of Climate Rage were also about to take place.
More details will follow.