Britain a soft touch for climate protesters as European neighbours take no nonsense
Climate protesters in many European countries face harsher punishments than their British counterparts when they stage disruptive Just Stop Oil-style stunts.
Activists across the Channel have disrupted traffic and airports and defaced works of art in similar actions to those carried out by Extinction Rebellion and other groups in the UK.
While the Government’s new Public Order Bill explicitly targets groups such as Extinction Rebellion, it falls short of imposing the harsh sentences handed out for similar offences on the Continent. It will introduce a sixmonth maximum jail term for people glueing or locking themselves to others, objects or buildings to cause disruption. Disrupting major transport works such as HS2 will carry the maximum sentence.
A new offence of disrupting key infrastructure such as railways, airports or roads will risk a year-long sentence, an unlimited fine or both. The French equivalent of Just Stop Oil is Dernière Rénovation, which has blocked roads at major French cities. On Monday, a group of activists blocked a western section of Paris’s Boulevard Périphérique ring road in the morning rush hour, accusing President Emmanuel Macron of “criminal inaction” and calling on him to do more to “reduce France’s carbon emissions”. However, police removed them after 30 minutes. Two days earlier, a dozen militants had blocked traffic around the finance ministry, while in the southern city of Toulouse, others tied themselves to the goal posts to halt a rugby match between Stade Toulousain and Stade Français.
On Nov 22, six activists from the group face legal action for “blocking traffic” during the 19th stage of the Tour de France in the southwestern Gers region. They face two years in prison and a €4,500 fine, a harsher penalty than for a similar offence in the UK. Four protesters who took part in a mass violent protest against water storage pools for farmers, near Sainte-soline in the western Deuxsèvres department, last month were “fast-tracked” to trial in Niort after their arrest. They face a maximum sentence of a year in prison and a €15,000 fine. About 4,000 people took part in the protests in which hundreds clashed with security forces. Of the 1,000 officers sent to the site, some 61 were injured, 22 seriously. There were six arrests. Similar Zones a Défendre (Zones to Defend) or ZADS – have been established by Left-wingers or opponents of new airports, dams, nuclear power plants and other infrastructure projects. This time, Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, vowed: “No ZAD [would be] installed in the Deux-sevres department nor anywhere else in France.” He condemned “ecoterrorism” by some of the protesters who used powerful fireworks and “blunt objects” to attack security forces on Saturday, Oct 29.
That drew criticism from Left-wing opposition groups, with MP Clementine Autain of the France Unbowed party, denouncing it as a “a smokescreen”. But last week, 39 MPS from Macron’s Renaissance group, along with centrist allies, called for MPS who took taking part in such actions to be punished, saying they were “trampling the constitution”.
Climate protesters have also targeted roads surrounding Rome. In some cases, motorists have come close to taking the law into their own hands.
Under Italian law activists can be sentenced to up to six years in prison for blocking roads, though prosecutions are rare. Meanwhile, three Italian women who threw pea soup at a Van Gogh painting face up to five years in jail.
Protesters have frequently blocked roads to demand more radical climate policies from the government of Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, which has led the Conservative opposition to compare them to the Baader Meinhof terrorist group.
Police in the German state of Bavaria are using a pre-emptive law amended last year to detain likely protesters for 30 days, a tactic that British police have also started using.
Protesters in the Netherlands have been warned they face strict penalties if they picket airports after police this week arrested 200 demonstrators at Schiphol airport.
Police in Madrid made four arrests at the weekend after activists from Futuro Vegetal (Vegetable Future) glued themselves to the frames of Goya paintings in the Prado museum. They were released on bail but face trial and possible jail terms of up to three years or fines for crimes against cultural heritage. Spanish opposition parties have pledged to present reforms to toughen up the penalties.
In Belgium, two activists were jailed for two months after one glued his hand to the wall next to Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring while another tried to glue his head to it.
In Egypt, where the Cop27 climate change summit is being held at Sharm el-sheikh, police are even more draconian. Human rights groups say climate activists have been arbitrarily arrested and security is tight in the resort town, which has severely restricted who can attend.