The Swedish activist is taking part in a new demonstration in Tarn on Saturday February 10 against the Toulouse-Castres motorway. On Sunday, she could also go to Bordeaux where a rally is being held against the drilling of new oil wells in Gironde.
Opponents of the controversial A69 motorway project will benefit from strong support. Environmental activist Greta Thunberg joined their rally on Saturday February 10 in Tarn, in the south-east of France. She arrived dressed in a fuschia pink raincoat, gray hood pulled down over her head, in the pouring rain.
The global face of the fight against global warming is part of an international delegation arriving late in the morning in Saïx, a town located a few kilometers west of Castres where a weekend of awareness of environmental issues called “la cabanade”. Surrounded by activists carrying signs reading “Stop A69”, the 21-year-old Swedish activist was to participate in a press conference a little later. Organizers hope to bring together 500 to 1,000 people for workshops, round tables and concerts, but the rainy and windy weather and the intervention of law enforcement in the immediate vicinity on Friday could dampen enthusiasm.
On Friday, the prefect of Tarn announced that he had “issued an order prohibiting demonstrations and gatherings” on Saturday and Sunday in Saïx, citing “risks of major disturbances to public order”. “Gathering on a private property, with the agreement of the owner, is not prohibited, anyone can invite whoever they want to their home,” the prefecture services clarified on Saturday.
Expected in Bordeaux tomorrow
His trip to France should continue towards Gironde. France 3 Occitanie specified on Friday that Greta Thunberg should also make her appearance the next day, February 11 in Bordeaux, to respond to the call to demonstrate launched by the collective “Stop Pétrole bassin d’Arcachon” against the creation of new wells on the site of the Vermillon company in Teste-de-Buch.
At only 21 years old, Greta Thunberg has acquired worldwide notoriety thanks to her “School Strikes for the Climate” started at the age of 15 in Sweden and her powerful speeches, notably during her intervention at the headquarters of the United Nations in 2019. Since then, the young woman has regularly taken part in such events. In October, it was fined for blocking the port of Malmö in Sweden. At the end of January, she took part in a march in the south of England against the expansion of Farnborough Airport, mainly used by private jets. Tried in early February in London for disturbing public order during a demonstration against the hydrocarbon industry last October in the British capital, the activist saw the charges against her dropped. The judge at Westminster Magistrates Court found that the police officers responsible for securing the demonstration had imposed “unlawful” conditions on him.
The activist should therefore do it again, in France this time, in support of activists and scientists who consider the A69 project “climaticidal” and “anachronistic”. Opposition to this highway project – itself supported by the government and strongly defended by the socialist president of the Occitanie regional council Carole Delga – took on a national scale in 2023, amplified by hunger strikes and thirst of the activist Thomas Brail and the “squirrels”, these pole vaulters installed on the plane trees in front of the Ministry of Ecological Transition.
At the same time, hundreds of researchers joined the opposition with tribunes and speaking out in the media to criticize this project which “keeps France on a trajectory incompatible with the ecological transition as enshrined in the law”. On January 16, the environmental group in the National Assembly announced the launch of a parliamentary commission of inquiry on the subject in order to “highlight all the collusions that there may be in this matter”.
Updated: February 10 at 12:30 p.m. with the arrival of Greta Thunberg in Tarn.