Guest of Sonia Mabrouk, Cécile Duflot, former Minister of Housing and Director General of the NGO Oxfam, defended her conception of non-violent activism: “I consider that non-violent civil disobedience is more effective. It is my conviction long standing that has been proven by experience,” she said.
Nevertheless, this long-time environmental activist allows herself to be “questioned because everyone is doing it. I don’t think I have all the science and know everything better than everyone else. I see that some say that the situation is too tense and too difficult and that we have to move on to more brutal methods of action. I don’t think that will help us”.
“Environmentalists were despised”
The former minister explains the strong anger of certain environmental activists by the disinterest they may have encountered: “20 years ago, your studios were not here, but I said the same thing at the microphone of Europe 1. Everyone laughed and environmentalists were despised. If we had listened to the warnings of scientists and climatologists 20 years ago, we would not be in this situation.
She also warned of the moments of tension “around water or simply habitable resources for the human species which will become more and more important. It is a reality”. Thus, she declares to understand the most radical militants without being in agreement with their methods of action.
The director of Oxfam returned to the notion of the legality of environmental actions: “I am always careful because the question of staying within the law is always complicated. In Sivens, the activists wanted to prevent the construction of this dam. They were considered disobedient because they did not respect the law. Since this dam, all the legal provisions have all been invalidated by the law. The dam has become illegal. This raises the question of the framework”, analyzes Cécile Duflot.