Will the Earth Uprising Disbandment Decree be suspended? The Council of State will make its decision “by the end of the week” in this showdown between the government and the environmental collective.

The case was debated during a river hearing of nearly three hours on Tuesday.

The judges of the highest French administrative court will have to answer two questions: is there really an “emergency situation” justifying their referral to the collective at the end of July? And are there “serious doubts” about the legality of the dissolution decree issued by the government on June 21?

The Council of State, however, recalled that whatever its decision, it “will not predict” that which will be rendered on the merits, probably not before one or two years.

The government accuses the Earth Uprisings of “calling” for violence and “participating” in it, which they strongly contest.

At the hearing, the lawyers of the collective, Me Antoine Lyon-Caen and Aïnoha Pascual, castigated the many “approximations” and “untruths” put forward according to them by the government.

Referring to the alleged violence, Me Pascual wondered: “why attribute the sole responsibility to the Uprisings and not to the Peasant Confederation or Extinction Rebellion?” while the demonstrations were united at the call of several organizations.

“Are we also going to be dissolved on the pretext that we are calling for acts of civil disobedience?” A representative of the Right to Housing association, which joined the proceedings, asked the judges.

By its decision, “the Council of State has the opportunity to say whether the simple fact of calling for civil disobedience in itself justifies a legitimate reason for dissolution”, also observed Basile Dutertre. Whatever the decision of the Council of State, it is only “the first round of a very long legal battle”, considers the one who presents himself as “one of the voices of the Uprisings of the earth”.

For the lawyers of the collective, “we cannot put on the same level light degradations, like the fact of going to tear off lily of the valley, and dangerous acts which seriously harm the interests of the nation”.

But for the representative of the State, Pascale Leglise, director of public freedoms and legal affairs at the Ministry of the Interior, who evokes “calls to burn everything” and “tutorials” to destroy pipes, the acts committed by the collective “go beyond simple civil disobedience”.

As for the attribution of the facts to this movement, it seems obvious to him: “There is not even to ask the question of who did what because they claim it themselves”.

The debates also focused on the nature of the Earth Uprisings: the government considers that they are “a de facto grouping” while they present themselves as a “composite and horizontal movement, devoid of leaders or identified members”.

“Can we really dissolve a current of thought?”, asked Me Pascual.

Several associations and parties (including La France insoumise, EELV, Agir pour l’environnement…) as well as thousands of individuals – “4,000 to date” according to Mr. Dutertre – have joined the appeal of the Earth Uprisings.

The government had announced its intention to dissolve this movement on March 28, a few days after violent clashes between gendarmes and opponents of the construction of water reservoirs, the “basins” of Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres).

According to the collective, its dissolution is “liberticide because it violates freedom of expression” and “freedom of association”.

“It is the” first time that there has been the dissolution of such an important movement, with almost 150,000 people who publicly claim it” and it is also “the first time that an ecology movement policy is the subject of such a procedure”, insisted Mr. Dutertre.

In recent years, most dissolution proceedings have targeted far-right groups or Islamist movements.

If the vast majority of appeals against these decisions were rejected, in May 2022, the Council of State had suspended the dissolution of the Antifascist Group Lyon and surroundings (Gale), considering that the elements put forward by the government “do not allow (ai) ent to demonstrate that the Gale has (was) incited to commit violent actions and seriously disturbed public order”.

08/08/2023 20:19:03 –         Paris (AFP) –         © 2023 AFP