Activists gathered in Paris on Wednesday outside the offices of two banks involved in the financing of a controversial TotalEnergies oil project in West Africa, as part of a day of action organized in several cities in the world.
Thirty young activists gathered under the Stop Total banner demonstrated in the 8th arrondissement in front of the Paris offices of the Japanese bank Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) and the British Standard Chartered.
The aim was to pressure the banks to withdraw from the East Africa Crude Oil Project (EACOP), a 1,443 kilometer heated pipeline jointly developed by French giant TotalEnergies, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). , as well as the state-owned oil companies of Uganda and Tanzania.
TotalEnergies owns 62% of the consortium that holds the license to operate the pipeline. SMBC is, along with Standard Bank of South Africa, one of the financial advisors to EACOP operators.
Standard Chartered has reportedly expressed interest in being a creditor of the project, which is expected to cost $10 billion (9.4 billion euros) including oil field development expenses.
“We are here to push these banks to make public their internal reports, which we know exist, which assess the environmental and societal risks of the EACOP project,” Ulysse Vassas, member of the Stop Total collective and coordinator, told AFP. of the international day of action with the NGO 350.org.
“They say EACOP is aligned with the Equator Principles, but we have no proof,” he says.
The Equator Principles are a set of provisions involving banks taking into account the social and environmental impact of the projects they finance. SMBC and Standard Chartered are among the 138 signatories to this voluntary scheme.
In July, a report by three NGOs highlighted EACOP’s non-compliance with several criteria set out in the Equator Principles.
Asked by AFP, Standard Chartered said it could not “comment on individual customers. The SMBC did not respond.
The project has faced strong opposition from human rights and environmental activists, who say the oil fields being exploited around Lake Albert threaten the region’s fragile ecosystem and the means livelihood of tens of thousands of people.
In front of Standard Chartered, rue de Monceau, then in front of SMBC, rue Paul Cézanne, the demonstrators unrolled adhesive tape to draw a red line, supposed to symbolize the Equator Principles.
“Which side are you on?” (Which side are you on?), read a placard held by one of the protesters.
Twenty-four other banks have already pledged not to support the EACOP project, according to 350.org.