The movement of climate activists, Food Riposte (formerly Last Renovation), blocked Avenue de la Grande-Armée in Paris for an hour this Monday morning, in one direction, to protest against government cuts in the budget devoted to the thermal renovation of buildings.
Seven activists wore orange vests stamped Food Response and sat on the pedestrian crossing around 9:15 a.m., sticking their hands to the asphalt, preventing traffic to all vehicles in the suburbs-Paris direction, towards the ‘Arc de Triomphe, with the exception of bicycles and motorbikes, causing honking but without clashes with motorists.
After three quarters of an hour, the police began to remove the hands of five of them from the asphalt with nail polish remover, before proceeding to arrest the seven activists.
“The government is going back on its promises by taking back a billion when 1.6 billion euros had been promised (increase in the envelope of MaPrimeRénov’, Editor’s note)”, Rachel justified, sitting on the ground, her neck chained to Sacha’s. “In addition to making it possible to confront the climate crisis, the thermal renovation of buildings is a major advance in social justice,” continued the activist, who affirms that she cannot “stand by and do nothing”.
Food Response protests against the “immediate” savings of 10 billion euros unveiled by the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire on February 18, to meet the ambitions of reducing the deficit. Elevated to the rank of “absolute priority” in September, the budget allocated to the ecological transition is one of the most affected by these savings.