“You can theoretically make the case that, in a democratic monarchy, the portrait of the head of state is a Republican symbol but, if that is the case, you have to say so, yet no one is saying it.” The speaker is Alexandre Faro, lawyer for the climate action group Action Non violente-COP21 (ANV-COP21), which is campaigning for climate justice. As far as the lawyer is concerned there are more questions that answers when it comes to the way his clients are being placed in custody and sent for trial in significant numbers.
Since February 21st 2019 ANV-COP21 has been carrying out Operation 'Décrocher Macron', which involves going into mayors' offices and town halls and taking down the official portrait of the president. The idea is to “take President Macron outside”, to “make him see the climate chaos and the extinction of biodiversity that is accelerating and getting worse” and to “make him understand the demands of an angry people”.
As Vincent, an ANV-COP21 activist from Villefranche-sur-Saône in eastern France, says “there's a double symbolism in this operation: to take Macron out so that he is is aware of what's happening outside in terms of mobilisation, of the more than two million signatures on the issue of the century and so on. But we also take down his portrait to show the extent to which France is falling down in relation to its commitments at the COP21 [climate change conference in Paris] in 2015.”
Since the first portrait was removed, 276 activists in 20 different groups have taken part in around 30 direct actions and 27 of the presidential photo portraits have been removed. These have been non-violent actions carried out in the daytime during which the activists have not covered their faces, while photos and/or videos of the actions have been openly published on social media.
But the authorities have - in some people's views - overreacted to the direct action. A total of 45 people have been questioned by gendarmes or police officers since the start of the movement, 23 of them on a voluntary basis and 22 in custody. Sixteen searches have been carried out. And now there are set to be four trials involving a total of 20 people.
“These measures are a little heavy-handed,” says lawyer Alexandre Faro. In part this tough approach can be explained by orders that have come down from on high. An internal email from the director general of the Gendarmerie Nationale, sent to the local gendarmerie in Lorent in Brittany in west France, 'leaked' out on to social media before Le Monde and website Reporterre picked it up.
These “directives concerning the thefts of presidential portraits in mayors' offices” call in particular for criminal proceedings to be “opened systematically” and ask the gendarmes to “gather the complaints from the mayors or, failing that, from the prefects” as well as to “make contact with the BLAT to determine the methods to put in operation in order to find the association's legal entity”. Yet, BLAT which stands for the Bureau de Lutte Antiterroriste, is an anti-terrorist unit. Its role, as Reporterre points out, is to “analyse, draw up and spread information to the authorities who need to know it” and to “coordinate, at a national level, the action of the gendarme units or services involved in the fight against terrorism, violent extremists or violations of state security”.
“The gendarmerie's letter indeed seems to have been followed to the letter,” says Alexandre Faro. “I've helped nine people in Paris. They are facing proceedings in the 16th chamber [editor's note, court]. I didn't realise it at the time but the 16th chamber is really a court for terrorism [editor's note, for cases that do not go to a higher criminal court], it's a bit strange.”
Mediapart has collected the statements from several of the people who have been questioned in custody. It is true that in most cases these periods of custody have only lasted a few hours. And it is also true that the detectives often seem more irritated than anything else when dealing with these proceedings. Nonetheless, some 20 activists still face trial in the coming months.
Véronique G. took part in removing a portrait from the the mayor's offices at Ancenis-Saint-Géréon, near Nantes in western France on March 16th. “The mayor spoke about a hold-up in relation to the portrait, he made a complaint. We sent him a letter to explain our actions,” she says.
The result was that a few days later six gendarmes arrived at her home where she lives with her son, aged 13, and a young migrant aged 16 who is being fostered. She refused to allow all six officers to come in and, after discussions, just two finally entered her home. A female gendarme did not leave Veronique's side, even when she got dressed and “went for a pee”.
“They took all the banners for the climate march,” says the activist. At the gendarmerie, she says, they “told me that my custody would last longer if I didn't answer their questions”. At the station she felt a little faint before finally getting something to eat – a cereal bar.
Véronique had decided beforehand how to respond to questions about the incident itself, and she said nothing. “They really wanted to know where Emmanuel Macron's portrait was hidden, they also wanted to know what the aim of the action was,” she says. The gendarmes continued to apply pressure even though, as lawyer Alexandre Faro says, keeping silent is “a right which is, moreover, pointed out at the start of each questioning”.
After six hours Véronique was released. She is, she says, still convinced that the cause is “worth the trouble”. She explains: “Before, I took part in some minor actions but the time came when I had to move on to doing more, to put pressure on the government to force it to act quickly. What I see is a lot of people, even in my own circle, who don't really know what civil disobedience is.”
Another activist, called Steffie, took part in an action at Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire in the suburbs of Nantes at the start of March. Around 30 militants were involved in all but some stayed outside the mayor's offices. “It was very fluid at the time,” recalls Steffie. “The staff at the mayor's offices weren't aware of anything. We entered in the council chamber which was open, we took the portrait and we took a photo of it. It was me who carried the portrait.”
Police officers came to see her at her workplace – Steffie works for an association promoting awareness about energy and the environment – at 9.30am. Three plain-clothes officers searched her then led her away, without handcuffs. “I wasn't expecting it at all,” she says. She was driven away in a police vehicle with sirens blaring and was taken to her home which was searched. “They got me to sign a document to authorise the search,” she says. “They took a K-way [jacket], some ANV tee-shirts and also some documents which were in a drawer stamped 'climate mobilisation',” says Steffie.
'It will be a chance to put the state's inaction on trial'
Back at the police station the questioning did not start immediately because Steffie asked for a lawyer. The police officers then asked her if it was really her on the photos taken during the action, if she knew other people who appeared in them and, of course, where the portrait was.
The officers did not give the impression that they were particularly relishing their task. “They led me to believe that doing it irritated them,” Steffie says. At the end Steffie walked out without knowing if the proceedings will end in a court summons or not. “They just told me that I risked being called in for further questioning,” she says.
Emma, a long-time ANV activist, took part in an action in the 5th arrondissement or district of Paris on March 21st. She was summoned for questioning and spent nine hours in custody with two other ANV militants and You Tuber Vincent Verzat from the collective group Partager C'est Sympa ('It's Nice to Share'), who had been there to film the action. Despite their presence, no one at the mayor's offices noticed anything and the activists even had time to take photos on the square in front of the offices.
The four were called in for questioning at 9am and first they were questioned about their identity, before then having to wait in cells. “It smelt of piss but we three girls were lucky to be together while Vincent was on his own,” says Emma. Emma's fingerprints were taken but says she was not notified in advance about her DNA test. “They put a swab in my mouth, I wasn't expecting it. It really annoys me to have given my DNA, they really should have informed me about it,” she says. Lawyer Alexandre Faro says: “ DNA samples are systematically taken in these cases despite European rulings.”
Emma says that during questioning the police officers “didn't give the impression of understanding what we were doing there”. They asked her if she was a militant and even if she was operating in association with “Black Bloc” - masked anti-globalisation protesters. But Emma added: “Even so, I felt a certain sympathy.” She and the other three who were questioned have now been summonsed to appear in court at 9am on September 11th to face trial for theft committed as part of a group. “It will be a chance to put the state's inaction on trial,” says Emma.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
Nicolas and Vincent have also been summonsed to appear in court but in their case this will be at Bourg-en-Bressse in the east of the country. Both participated in an action that took place on March 2nd at the mayor's offices in Jassans-Riottier, about 30 miles south-west of Bourg-en-Bressse. The removal of the portrait took place peacefully and the action lasted “three minutes”. During the action the activists tried to reassure a startled secretary - who was the only person present - by explaining the aim of their gesture.
Nicolas was summoned on March 11th. The summons had been delivered by gendarmes at his home and the questioning later took place in custody. “We were summonsed at 8.30am, we arrived with twenty or so supporters. Opposite there were 40 gendarmes, of whom some were called in that day and who were wearing their public order control uniforms,” he says. “It was quite weird because when we arrived we rang [the bell], we saw the gendarmes inside but they didn't open.”
Eventually the six people who had been summoned were asked to come inside the station. Two others who joined them were members of the support committee whom the gendarmes thought they recognised from the photos of the portrait removal.
When questioning him the gendarmes asked Nicolas about the action itself but also about the way the ANV movement was organised, who its leaders were and so on. On the other hand “there weren't really questions about the person who might have the portrait”. Nicolas continued: “They asked me if I had the portrait at my house, asked me if I accepted it being searched, I said yes but it didn't even happen.” The outcome was that six people, including Nicolas, have been summonsed to appear at court in Bourg-en-Bresse on May 28th.
Alongside Nicolas in court will be Vincent, who was also questioned by gendarmes. Vincent did a training course with ANV about how to react if detained in custody but he says that “frankly if someone had told me a few months ago that I'd be held in custody for such an action I wouldn't have believed them”.
During his questioning Vincent was asked more or less the same questions as Nicolas about who the leaders were and how the structure was organised. “They also asked me if I had the portrait at my home, but I had told them from the start that it was not a theft but a requisition, that we'd return the photo when the government's policy changed,” he says.
Vincent gave his fingerprints and a DNA sample to officers. “They explained to me that at the end of the case my DNA sample would be destroyed but, well, I'm struggling a bit to believe that.” Lawyer Alexandre Faro goes a step further. “There's no chance that it will be destroyed.” The 'non violent' ANV activists now face the heavy risk of having police files kept on them for a long time, just like real terrorists.
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter