An unprecedented gathering of associations and unions in Paris against climate austerity

The red flags of France Nature Environnement, the green flags of Greenpeace, the hourglass of Extinction Rebellion, the symbol of the Attac percentage… Environmental associations flew their colors on Tuesday, September 15, in front of the Ministry of the Economy, in the Bercy district of Paris. Several hundred activists gathered in the early evening to say “stop climate austerity” and weigh in on the 2027 finance bill, debated in the Assembly from October 12. But among them, there are also faces unfamiliar with the climate cause. “We're all meeting for the first time,” notes Eloi Pérignon, whose France Nature Environment (FNE) association is behind the gathering.

Bruno Ménard will soon take the stage. Secretary general of the volunteer firefighters' union, he is there to make the voices of "climate soldiers" heard. His organization had never taken part in such protests, but this summer changed everything. “The civil security system is cracking, it is exploding. What we experienced this summer was a breakdown in capacity, the means we had were no longer enough,” he tells franceinfo, recalling the records for burned hectares broken.

“It’s dramatic what we experienced, and we will experience it again next year, and the year after that.”

Bruno Ménard, general secretary of the volunteer firefighters union

at franceinfo

Same observation from Thierry Amouroux, spokesperson for the national union of nurses. “We have seen the effects of heatwaves on our patients. We are no longer in a story in 2050, there. There is the tip of the iceberg, the 7,300 deaths, then all the patients with heart problems, kidney problems, etc. who saw their condition worsen because of the heat, going through the stages of their illness more quickly,” he recalls. Faced with this situation, he describes "exhausted caregivers" having worked all summer in old, glass hospitals, "which have become greenhouses".

Farmers, students, doctors, feminists...

"This team of environmental associations, firefighters, nurses, etc., I have never seen that. It says something about the unprecedented nature of this summer. On this occasion, the country's first aiders, those who are really in contact with the affected populations, [are] present", greeted earlier Jean-François Julliard, general director of FNE.

Just like those who endure these extreme conditions. At the microphone, defective, and perched on a truck, the megaphones of the victims of this scorching summer follow one another. Farmers, "on the front line", who "have just spent extreme months on [their] farms", in the words of Emilie Deligny, general secretary of the Confédération paysanne. The workers, whose memories of the “roofer who died in the Drôme in May and the four seasonal workers who left after a heat stroke during the grape harvest in Champagne in 2023” are still vivid, reports Gaël David, federal secretary of the CFDT Agri-Agro. The students, in “classrooms over 35°C” and who were “suffocating” in thermal kettles, adds a representative of the Federation of General Student Associations. Women, victims of violence which increases in extreme heat, recalls the NousToutes collective. Or Médecins du monde, which "spent [its] summer marauding with people on the street who live in a concrete hell", deplores the coordinator of the association, Paul Alauzy.

Gathered at the foot of the tall gray buildings surrounding Bercy, after having felt the effects of climate change "in their flesh", the associations, collectives and unions present each arrive with their demands. Thierry Amouroux is asking for a plan for the management of elderly people at home and the mobilization of funds collected during the solidarity day, set up after the heatwave of 2003. Bruno Ménard is calling for "more firefighters to put a territorial network back in place". For Murielle Guilbert, co-general delegate of Solidaires, it is "urgent to modify the Labor Code, to adjust workers' schedules". It's up to Jean-François Julliard to sum up: "We need a budget that takes these issues into greater account."

“The base opens”

For Sylvie Ollitrault, research director at the CNRS specializing in environmental and ecological mobilizations and contacted by telephone, such a varied gathering of horizons is indeed a first. “The base is opening, it’s not surprising because the medical profession and the firefighters have been impacted and will be even more so in the future,” she notes, reached by telephone.

So in Bercy, environmental associations prefer to disappear for the benefit of newcomers. "We've been delivering the message for decades. But this summer changed the game, everyone felt it. It's great to see this gathering," rejoices Fanny Petitbon, France manager for the NGO 350.org. “There is hope that political consideration will move up a gear,” Emilie Deligny wants to believe.

“We are together to share our experiences, our suffering, our hopes.”

Fanny Petitbon, France manager for the NGO 350.org

at franceinfo

Everyone wants to believe that this mobilization, and the following one on September 26, are a turning point in taking the fight against climate change into account in public policies. “This new alliance can play in favor of the recognition of climate change and its consequences, conceives Sylvie Ollitrault. We will see if it will last, or if it is just for a moment.”