Will the Earth Uprising Disbandment Decree be suspended? The Council of State examines Tuesday an appeal filed by this environmental collective against this decree, the beginning of a long legal battle.
The highest French administrative court was seized at the end of July according to an emergency procedure called “referred-suspension” by the Uprisings of the earth. This targets the decree of dissolution issued on June 21 by the government, which accuses the collective of “calling” for violence and “participating” in it.
“This hearing is the first round of a very long legal battle”, underlined during a rally of support organized before the Council of State Basile Dutertre, who presents himself as “one of the voices of the Uprisings of the earth”. The latter is specifically targeted by the decree of dissolution, being considered as one of the leaders of the movement.
“The temperature is rising and we want to break the thermometer,” denounced the environmental MEP Benoît Biteau during a press briefing before the opening of the hearing.
After having heard the parties, the Council of State should put its decision under advisement. A hearing on the merits must subsequently examine the legality of the decree of dissolution.
Several associations and parties (including La France insoumise, EELV, Acting for the environment, etc.) as well as hundreds of individuals have joined in the use of the Earth Uprisings.
The government 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 in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres).
In his decree, he affirms that “this group encourages the commission of sabotage and material damage, including by violence”.
He also criticizes him for playing “a major role in the design, dissemination and legitimization of violent operating methods in the context of contesting certain development projects”.
Assertions that the collective disputes, judging that the facts of which it is accused are “inoperative”, “materially inaccurate” or are not “attributable” to it.
According to the Uprisings of the Earth, the “calls for civil disobedience” do not fall under the “provocation to violence” and “cannot be legally qualified as violence”, the “degradation against property not endangering life of others”.
In general, the movement believes that its dissolution was “liberticidal because it violates freedom of expression” and “freedom of association”.
The Uprisings also argue that they are not “a de facto group”, as the government maintains, but “a current of thought based on a vast movement, devoid of leaders or identified members”.
It is “a composite movement that we cannot dissolve, just as we cannot dissolve the feminist movement, for example. The question that the Council of State will have to answer is: can we really dissolve a current of thought?” Aïnoha Pascual, a lawyer for the movement, said before the hearing.
Another argument of the lawyers of the collective: the rights of the defense were, according to them, ” flouted ” with an ” excessively compressed ” procedural delay and the addition of new elements not communicated by the State ” in violation of the principle of adversarial proceedings “.
For them, this procedure is “capital” because “it is the” first time that there is the dissolution of such an important movement, with almost 150,000 people who publicly claim it.
It is also “the first time that a political ecology movement has been the subject of such a procedure”, underlined Friday during a rally in the Larzac Basile Dutertre.
Most dissolution proceedings over the past ten years have targeted far-right groups or Islamist movements.
While 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) in summary proceedings, considering that the elements put forward by the government “do not allow ( have not demonstrated that the Gale has (was) incited to commit violent actions and seriously disturbed public order”.
08/08/2023 15:52:39 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP