The French government will take steps to shut down Les Soulèvements de la Terre (SLT), a climate activism group, for advocating what the government described as violent “eco-terrorism,” according to multiple reports.
The government argued that SLT “encourages sabotage and material damage,” using climate activism and conservation as a “pretence” for their activities, according to Reuters. SLT lawyer Raphael Kempf told the outlet that the shutdown was an “infringement on freedom of expression” that intentionally targeted the group for its speech, as opposed to its behavior. (RELATED: Climate Activists Try To Shut Down Ports, Bridge With Their Own Bodies)
“You don’t dissolve an association because of its ideas,” said government spokesman Olivier Véran, according to The Guardian. “You dissolve it because there is violence or a risk for public safety.”
Véran alleged that the group “whipped up violence” at a March protest at a planned irrigation site in Sainte-Soline, France, and invited rioters “from across Europe” welding metal bars and pétanque balls “to try to kill police officers,” The Guardian reported. The unauthorized protest devolved into a violent battle between the roughly 6,000 protesters and around 3,200 police officers, in which police officers used stun grenades and tear gas to repel protestors, who set fire to at least three police vehicles, according to Reuters.
When the dust had settled, seven protesters were injured and 24 police officers were injured, with one protestor and officer in critical but not life-threatening condition, Reuters reported.
FILE PHOTO: Protesters clash with the gendarmerie during a demonstration called by the collective “Bassines Non Merci” against the “basins” on the construction site of new water storage infrastructure for agricultural irrigation in western France, in Sainte-Soline, France March 25, 2023. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo
Activist groups and police traded blame for the violence, with the French Human Rights League alleging that police fired at protesters with “weapons of war” such as tear gas grenades, stun grenades, rubber bullets and explosive sting-ball grenades, “as soon as the demonstrators arrived,” according to The Guardian. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin at the time blamed the violence on roughly 1,000 far-left activists, who he alleged had been agitating in the area since the day prior, Reuters reported.
Prosecutors announced on Tuesday that they had detained 14 individuals in relation to vandalism at a SLT protest, The Guardian reported. SLT claimed in a press release that at least 18 people linked to the movement were arrested “across France,” and decried the government’s efforts to “silence” them.
“We know, the true association of criminals, is the one between the government, the agro-industrial lobby and the [Construction and Public Works] sector which is in the process of destroying the Earth in an irreversible way,” the group said in a press release, translated by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The French Interior Ministry and SLT did not immediately respond to a Daily Caller News Foundation request for comment.
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