Ophélie Artaud
modified to
2:43 p.m., February 25, 2024
The possible invitation of the Uprisings of the Earth for a debate (ultimately canceled) at the Salon de l’Agriculture caused controversy. If the executive assures that the environmental group was not invited, the movement asserts the opposite. Guest of the Grand Rendez-vous, Marc Fesneau, Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, wanted to clarify the situation.
Were they invited? A few days ago, while the Élysée was considering organizing a major debate at the Salon de l’Agriculture, the possible invitation from the Uprisings of the Earth caused a stir. After announcing the invitation, the presidential palace backpedaled, regretting an “error”, while the environmental movement assured, in a press release, that the executive tried to contact them.
On Saturday, during his visit to the Salon de l’Agriculture, Emmanuel Macron expressed his “anger”: “I completely deny this information. Totally. I never thought of initiating such an invitation. And you are talking to the president of the Republic which assumed the responsibility of having the dissolution of the Earth Uprisings passed through the Council of Ministers.” The government had decided to dissolve it, before this was canceled by the Council of State. This environmentalist collective is implicated in violence and damage, particularly on the mega-basins project in Sainte-Soline.
“A group that is not respectable in public life”
Guest of the Grand Rendez-vous d’Europe 1/ CNews/ Les Échos, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, Marc Fesneau, wanted to clarify the situation once again. And he assures: “No invitation was made to the Earth Uprisings”. “The president of the show and his organization were not mandated to invite uprisings on Earth, the President of the Republic said these things again yesterday [au Salon de l’Agriculture, ndlr]. And finally, it’s complicated to give full credit to an association or a kind of group whose only work is to throw Molotov cocktails,” criticizes the Minister of Agriculture.
For Marc Fesneau, the movement’s “violent actions” make it “a group that is not respectable in public life. I do not dialogue with people who say ‘either you agree with me or I will imposes my point of view through violence. It is impossible in a democracy, otherwise it is tyranny which is organized”, he concludes at the microphone of the Grand Rendez-vous.