Thousands of environmental activists from all over the world joined hands in a line across Paris Sunday in defiance of a ban on a climate demonstration following the 13 November terrorist attacks. Activists stood on the sidewalk along a three-kilometre stretch of eastern Paris, holding signs and banners, reports RFI.
"We were told by the Parisian government that we couldn't march in the street, but we were given word that standing on the sidewalks would be tolerated," explains Kandi Mossett of the Indigenous Environmental Network.
She came to Paris from North Dakota in the United States, where she says fracking for oil and natural gas is causing problems.
"The governments tout fracking as some clean form of energy because of natural gas," she says. "But in North Dakota all of our people are getting very sick and very big social problems. And it's for oil."
Farther down the human chain, Shakira Martin and three other British students held a homemade sign with a picture of a dinosaur and the words "Fossils are our friends, not fuel".
"I'm here to stand in solidarity with all the other international organisations and students to say that we need renewable energies and no to all forms of fracking and fossil fuels," says Martin, a vice-president of the British National Union of Students.
French environmentalists were out in force, from mainstream groups, like Greenpeace and Oxfam, to activists protesting against an airport in Nantes in western France, as well as vegetarian and vegan groups.