The direct action of mass environmentalism to disarm the collapse: the example of Les Soulèvements de la terre
In a short time, the Soulèvements de la Terre movement has gone from mobilizing 200 people to gathering up to 30,000 in direct actions to defend the earth and dismantle the ecocidal industry. Your cpatience to generate mass ecology through direct action and the ability to articulate very diverse movements – unions, farmers, ecologists, urbanites, among others – has placed this group in the spotlight, inspiring initiatives everywhere, including Catalonia.
The French movement Soulèvements de la Terre brings together climate activists, farmers, trade unionists, autonomous anti-capitalist groups and people linked to local struggles. His thesis (promoted from the year 2021) starts from the realization that only a real popular uprising could stop the climate crisis and put an end to the capitalist plundering of our living environments. Its objective is to promote direct collective actions and weave a network of local struggles that at the same time promote a resistance movement, land redistribution and construction of common goods on a larger scale.
This organization formed by small local struggles in defense of the land and the countryside for sustainable agriculture has managed to articulate itself in a social movement at the state level, thus achieving that its actions have much more media coverage and, therefore , its impact is much greater. There are numerous battles won on the field, but perhaps the most resounding is the acquittal of the same dissolution decreed by the French interior minister Gerald Darmanin. The Council of State annulled this ministerial decree that condemned the organization to disappear, an illegalization promoted personally by Darmanin himself, who highlighted how “annoying” the movement in defense of the land by the French state
Beyond the battles in the offices, the movement’s direct actions focus on blocking, occupying land and carrying out actions of mass sabotage against toxic infrastructure that endanger natural resources.
Coòpolis, the cooperative University of Barcelona has invited two of its members in order to connect the movement with mobilized agents in Catalonia and to share the experience of territorial articulation. This meeting will take place next December 4, at Bloc4BCNin the framework of the Utopically Days, promoted by the School of Transitions. Benoit Feuillu, and Chantal Chanterelle, will share their strategic hypothesis, based on direct action, the plural composition of movements and the popular self-organization that underpins this new movement.
Photograph: ©Les Soulèvements de la Terre
