the challenge facing elected environmentalists

Everyone has seen and seen again these extremely spectacular images: mortars and Molotov cocktails fired on one side, tear gas canisters and defense ball launchers on the other. And serious injuries on both sides. Six months after the first clashes, the site of Sainte-Soline, in Deux-Sèvres, was the scene of a second day of pitched battle, Saturday March 25.

A violence that completely overshadowed the presence of thousands of peaceful protesters. And that poses a big challenge to elected environmentalists: it often harms their fight, and they don’t necessarily seem to realize it.

>> “Mega-basins”: “It was weapons of war against demonstrators”, denounce with emotion the demonstrators of Sainte-Soline

The elected Greens were present in large numbers, that’s normal. They have been campaigning for a long time against this project of mega-basins intended for the irrigation of agriculture. They demonstrated peacefully, led by their national secretary, Marine Tondelier. They also castigated the “repression” of a law enforcement device that they judged “disproportionate”. That too is logical. On the other hand, they had more difficulty in condemning the violence of the activists who came to fight it out. Marine Tondelier even absolved them, in fact, since for her, it’s clear, everything is Gérald Darmanin’s fault: “If there had been no law enforcement, there would have been no clashes or destruction“, she said on Sunday.

Why such an attitude? Let’s say that this indulgence is consubstantial with the history of ecologists. As they fought, they often resorted to what is called civil disobedience. Noël Mamère ripped off GMO plans, José Bové dismantled a McDo, Yannick Jadot was condemned as a Greenpeace activist for having entered a nuclear submarine base.

Result: even if they respect the legality, some elected Greens still tend to justify that others commit illegal acts to oppose certain development projects. An attitude that delights and unites the various families of environmental activists. But who can worry a wider electorate and harm the progress of the Greens at the bottom of the ballot box.