French police on Saturday blocked climate activists from holding a demonstration in central Paris on the first official day of the Olympic Games. Protesters from Extinction Rebellion (XR), once notorious for shutting down bridges over the Thames river in London, had planned to occupy the Pont des Arts bridge over the Seine, which had hosted the Games’ opening ceremony only hours earlier. On Saturday morning, police officers “arrested 45 people belonging to a radical ecology group who were about to carry out a demonstration,” Paris prosecutors told AFP. Security forces are on high alert nationwide after saboteurs early Friday disrupted train travel throughout France.
The stint on the bridge, which organisers previously said would be “more visible than disruptive”, was called off after police arrested XR activists before the protest even began, the group said in a statement.
“Around 30 people were preventively arrested Saturday in Paris, without there being any offence to truly accuse them of,” Alexis Baudelin, one of the group’s lawyers, told AFP.
A group of journalists preparing to cover the protest were also kettled.
“The French government has deployed great resources to block our special Olympic action,” Extinction Rebellion France posted on X.
“Our democracy burns and we are watching the flame of Paris 2024.”
Activists are calling for more participative democracy and the creation of a citizen assembly to design a new constitution for France, which finds itself in a political impasse following elections earlier this month.
“We need a new model for society, which has to be fair and democratically accepted. We want to put citizens back at the heart of the political project that we want to see,” said Sandro, an XR activist who didn’t want to give his full name.
The foiled protest comes after nine XR activists, including a minor, were preventively arrested Friday east of Paris, according to Paris prosecutors.
On Tuesday, eight activists were also arrested and released for putting up stickers critical of the Games in the Paris metro.
Organisers of the 2024 Paris Olympics promised to take “unprecedented” action for the climate by halving the event’s carbon footprint compared to previous Games.
But academics and campaigners have been sceptical, criticising car giant Toyota’s sponsorship of the Games.
Earlier this month, around 100 scientists signed an open letter arguing that “Toyota’s promotion of a hydrogen car is scientifically misaligned with net-zero and will damage the reputation of the 2024 Games”.
Climate campaigners put up mock adverts in Paris and five other French cities this week highlighting Toyota as a high-emitting company.
Toyota previously told AFP that hydrogen would play “a critical role among different decarbonisation technologies”.
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