Greenpeace France, after the conviction said that “The association and the activists reserve the right to appeal this decision,” which happened Thursday, by the criminal court of Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis), sentencing nine of its activists.
They were judged on February 8 incident for having entered the apron of Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle airport, on March 5, 2021, and having partially repainted an Air France plane green to denounce the mirage of the green plane.
Leparisien reports that the nine activists were warned of willful damage, obstructing the navigation of aircraft and, for some, refusing to submit to a DNA sample. It is not so much the fines imposed that upset the environmental NGO because, as it itself notes,
“they correspond to those required by the prosecution during the trial: the court imposed fines of 700 euros for the activists who have no criminal record and between 80 and 120 day fines of 10 euros for those who have already been convicted for actions of civil disobedience. "
Greenpeace is especially annoyed that the court went beyond the requisitions by pronouncing, in addition, "a sentence of banning people from appearing at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle and Le Bourget airports for three years under penalty of six months of 'firm imprisonment'.
Jean-François Julliard, the general director from Greenpeace France, said in the press release,
“The judges swept aside the defense of the activists and the association on freedom of expression and the state of necessity, testifying to a judicial refusal to adapt to the climate emergency context when defendants act for it. general interest. "
"The penalty of being banned from appearing in these airports under penalty of imprisonment sends a very bad signal, by de facto depriving activists of their freedom of movement. This conviction, which takes the form of a threat of imprisonment, is part of the repressive line of the police headquarters and the Ministry of the Interior against environmental activists.”
The outbursts of environmental defense associations have multiplied in recent years, in airports, to denounce the climate emergency, notably at Le Bourget against private jets. Just last September, activists from Attac and Extinction Rebellion attempted to symbolically plant trees there.
Last February, during the trial of Greenpeace activists, one of them justified their action of civil disobedience as follows:
“We wanted to express ourselves in a non-violent and symbolic way. “It allows us to talk, to write, to shake up consciences, to bring this just cause into existence, to listen to experts,” added Me Marie Dosé, the lawyer for the nine defendants from all over France and aged between 22 and 59 years old.
Not only France , Netherlands also faces such acts from the environmental activists , who tried to disrupt the arrival and departures in Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport on 05 Novemeber 2022.
On may 23rd 2023, in a similar act to disrupt the movement of aircraft and in an attempt to cutail the aviation activities globally, an excess of 100 climate activists from several countries entered and tried to disrupt the business aviation sales event Ebace2023 in Geneva and called for a global ban of Business Jet sales.
Air France, whose plane was grounded for three days for technical inspection, had requested a symbolic euro in damages. The material damage of 60,000 euros was covered by insurance. Aéroports de Paris (ADP) had presented the same request. The two companies won their case on Thursday for image damage.
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