“Already 8 hours in police custody for at least 27 ATTAC activists”.
On its Twitter account, the association for financial taxation and citizen action protests against the arrest, around 9:50 a.m., of its members, this Monday morning, near Le Bourget airport (Seine-Saint-Denis ).
In the evening, thirty-three activists were still questioned at the Dugny police station by the police.
They should spend the night there.
But they were much more numerous to have launched an action on the airport.
Alongside ATTAC, Extinction Rebellion (XR) had deployed its climate activists.
They intended to denounce "inaction in the face of the climate emergency".
“A police device has muzzled us,” they complain.
A dozen CRS trucks were waiting for them on the spot.
[PRESS RELEASE] Today, a hundred activists from @xrFrance and @attac_fr tried to break into Le Bourget airport to block the take-off of private jets.
An action prevented by a colossal and unprecedented police device.
👇https://t.co/KExxuUSiJu
- Attac France (@attac_fr) October 31, 2022
A total of 103 people were checked by police and gendarmes from the La Courneuve police station, the border police and the air transport gendarmerie.
The arrests were carried out smoothly: 35 activists were directed to the Gonesse police station (Val-d'Oise) for a simple identity check and 31 others to that of Plaine Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) because they refused to submit to checks.
Thirty-three men and women suspected of attempted trespassing on the tarmac have been taken into custody.
These partisans of non-violent civil disobedience had arrived, for thirty of them, in a truck and for others, by their own means, in particular on foot passing through the forest of Bonneuil-en-France (Val- of Oise).
The well-established organization had formed three “commandos” dressed in the white coveralls of building painters.
They had positioned themselves to the north, east, and west of the platform, operating with their faces uncovered.
A small group equipped with a grinder intercepted
A small group equipped with a grinder to cut the mesh was stopped before taking action, in Dugny, near the sewage treatment plant.
The others were waiting in front of the airport enclosure for the way to be clear to invade the site of the ADP group (Paris airport).
The device was nipped in the bud.
Peace activists did not have time to enter the airport.
They were found in possession of U-locks, which they commonly use to attach themselves, cans of red paint supposed to simulate blood and banners, which could read "1% of travelers 50% pollution" or "75% of jet journeys can be made by TGV".
Le Bourget is regularly targeted by environmentalists.
Because it is the leading business aviation platform in Europe, with 52,000 private jet movements in 2021.
Two actions of this type have already taken place this year.
The last dates back to September 23, at this airport.
With more success: around twenty ATTAC and XR activists had blocked the hall of a building for more than an hour, which provides access to private jets.
"It was the same movement, but not the same people," said a source close to the investigation.
A similar initiative was carried out last January, to denounce “climate criminals” and travel by private planes.
An investigation was opened each time.
