PARIS (AFP) – French police yesterday 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.
Security forces are on high alert nationwide after saboteurs early on 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 kettled a group of journalists preparing to cover
the protest. “The French government has deployed great resources to block our special Olympic action,” XR France said in a statement 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 climate-focused 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 XR activist Sandro, who didn’t want to give his full name. The foiled protest comes after eight XR activists were arrested on Tuesday for putting up stickers critical of the Games in the Paris metro, the city’s police said. They were later released. 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.
