- Some climate activists temporarily blocked a motorway exit in Lausanne on Monday morning.
- The police intervened with around ten arrests – the eviction was peaceful.
- The activists belong to the new “Renovate Switzerland” movement: They are demanding an action plan from the Federal Council to promote energy-efficient building renovations.
The activists settled down shortly before 8 a.m. on the motorway to the Maladière roundabout, the southern entrance to Lausanne. Several police patrols quickly intervened, as reported by a Keystone-SDA journalist at the scene.
The law enforcement officers cleared the blockade by carrying the activists off the highway. The police arrested around ten people, as reported on the short message service Twitter. They were reported to the judicial authorities. The evacuation was peaceful – the traffic, which was blocked for a quarter of an hour, could then be resumed.
The recently founded “Renovate Switzerland” is the Swiss offshoot of a “civil resistance” movement that already exists in almost a dozen other countries, for example under the name “Dernière Rénovation” in France or “Declare Emergency” in the USA. The action carried out in Lausanne is the first to take place on Swiss soil.
Legend:
Renovate Switzerland has announced that the organization will continue its actions until the Federal Council has complied with its request for a national plan to renovate one million homes by 2040.
key stone
The activists are calling for more subsidies for energy-efficient building renovations. From 2023, these should amount to CHF 1 billion per year – five times more than today. In addition, 100,000 construction workers are to be trained in this construction sector.