The authorities in Paris have banned public demonstrations following the recent terror attacks, including a major march on Sunday November 29th on the eve of the Paris climate change conference COP 21, and a similar mass demonstration two weeks later. French foreign minister Laurent Fabius, who will be the official conference chairman, said the decision had been taken to “avoid additional risks” following the coordinated bombing and shooting attacks that struck the French capital on Friday, November 13th.
However the organisers of Sunday's banned march, the Coalition Climat 21, which brings together 130 social movements, environmental NGOs and trade unions, insist that the protests must go ahead in some form. “We have to rally together for world peace more than ever,” said its coordinator Juliette Rousseau. “Climate disruption will be an additional source of conflict and of displacing populations.” Rousseau said that the Paris attacks were an attack on society as a whole. “Collective action is the best way to create hope and resilience.”
Enlargement : Illustration 1
The big question, however, is what form this rallying together should take now that Sunday's march has been stopped. The ban was announced on Wednesday November 18th and so far groups are still working on alternative plans. “We can't physically walk for the climate or gather together but the public space still exists,” said Marie Yared of the campaigning organisation Avaaz.
One option is to fill the route of the banned march – which was due to run from La République to La Nation in the centre of Paris, close to where the attacks on restaurants took place – with sights and sounds. In particular the protesters might use the floats and decorations they had planned to use for the march, using the slogan “Still working for the climate”.
For their part the major French organisations, the Nicolas Hulot Foundation and France Nature Environnement, plus the international organisation Greenpeace have announced the creation of a website (march4me.org) to bring together all those who are planning to protest elsewhere in France or in the world on November 29th with those who are no longer allowed to.
In addition, a number of planned events in the Paris area are still going ahead. These include a citizen's climate summit at Montreuil east of Paris on December 5th and 6th (which will include an alternative world village organised by Alternatiba, a climate forum and a country market organised by France's union for small and organic farmers the Confédération paysanne), and the climate action zone at Centquatre centre in Paris (with workshops, debates and a general assembly) from December 7th to 11th.
Though the authorities' ban extends to the planned march on December 12th, on the eve of the end of the climate conference, the environmental body Friends of the Earth are maintaining their call for a “mass mobilisation” of people on that day, and according to their spokesperson Malika Peyraut they are preparing “inclusive and participative action, some of it outside”. The global warming group 350.org, meanwhile, has announced it will be staging acts of non-violent civil disobedience.
Coalition Climate 21 say that none of their international partners have cancelled their plans to come to Paris for the conference and that places on the buses bringing participants continue to be filled. Meanwhile on Saturday 200 cyclists and five tractors from members of the anti-airport protest at Notre-Dames-des-Landes near Nantes in west France began their journey to Paris in time for the conference. They were stopped by “several hundred” police officers on their way but allowed to continue after being officially informed of the ban on protests in Paris.
The only organisation to continue to call for supporters to take part in Sunday's banned march is a group called Les Désobéissants ('The Disobedient') who are calling for people to gather “calmly, without hatred and without violence”. In a statement the group said: “We reject the shock strategy which consists of using the tragic attacks to restrict freedoms.” Several tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people had been expected to attend the Paris march on Sunday.
At last week's sometimes confused Coalition Climat 21 press conference the decision to ban the march was not attacked straight away, a reflection of the different views about the issue inside the Coalition. It was only when journalists began asking questions that organisers said they “regretted” that the authorities in Paris had not put forward alternatives to the initial march. “It's very difficult for the Coalition to be able to take responsibility to maintain the march in the current context,” said Juliette Rousseau. The trade unions the CGT and CFDT, whose officials often act as stewards at protests, had quickly made it clear that they would not do so on this occasion following the ban. “When [French prime minister] Manuel Valls says that COP 21 will be reduced to the essential, we are not the essential,” added Rousseau. The big NGOs inside the Coalition had quickly resigned themselves to the state of emergency declared after the November 13th attacks.
However, not all members of the Coalition take the same stance. The French trade union federation SUD-PTT said: “The fight against terrorists must not be used to support restrictions on our freedoms.” In a statement the union federation called for “the immediate lifting of these bans [on the demonstrations]. It's not up to the government to decide whether these demonstrations continue or not. It is up to the social movement, and it alone, to decide on the consequences.”
That point of view is an isolated one in France. However, some international movements, who had been preparing to march next Sunday, are calling for it to be reinstated. “UN must not let France cancel democracy at the climate summit,” tweeted Canadian journalist and activist Naomi Klein. “Either official meetings + full dissent, or neither.”
Enlargement : Illustration 2
Yet the French authorities are not considering a change of heart. Last Friday, November 20th, several of François Hollande's advisors held a briefing on COP21 at the Hôtel de Marigny, a government building close to the Elysée Palace. Questioned about whether democracy was harmed by the march ban, Nicolas Hulot, who is President Francis Hollande's 'special envoy for the protection of the planet', on top of his foundation being a member of the Coalition Climat 21, said: “We're sorry about that. But it some ways it's a relief: imagine what would have happened if these attacks had happened during the march for the climate?”
A question as to why concerts, football matches and the Christmas market on the Champs-Elysées were being allowed but not the climate marches brought a sharp response from Hollande's diplomatic advisor Jacques Audibert. “You don't see a difference between several thousand people in a limited area and several hundred thousand people over a large area? It's not on the same scale,” he said angrily. One hundred and thirty-eight heads of state and government are expected at the Paris-Le Bourget site for the opening of the conference. The Chinese president Xi Jinping will already be in town – he is due to have dinner with President Hollande on November 29th. For the French government, the priority will be to ensure the safety of all its visitors.
In fact, the march for the climate scheduled for November 29th has not technically been banned yet. On November 14th the police authorities in Paris – the prefecture – formally issued a decree banning demonstrations on the public highway in Paris and the surrounding counties or départements of Seine-Saint-Denis, Hauts-de-Seine and Val-de-Marne, until November 19th. This decree was then extended until November 22nd. Thus several organisations are considering seeking court injunctions against a ban on the November 29th march. For its part, the CGT trade union is calling for a day of caution against social violence on December 2nd. Meanwhile a planned march in Paris on Sunday November 22nd in support of migrants turned into a protest against the state of emergency imposed by the government.
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter