What looks like a defeat for the Minister of the Interior sounds like a victory on the left. This Friday, the Council of State – the highest French court – suspended the decree aimed at dissolving the environmental movement of the Earth Uprisings. “Justice has played its role as a bulwark”, reacted to Agence France-Presse the national secretary of Europe Ecology Les Vers (EELV) Marine Tondelier, considering that there were no “legal and sufficient facts” against this environmental collective. His predecessor at the head of the Greens Julien Bayou “welcomes a fair, important decision”. “It’s a terrible disavowal for the government and Darmanin,” he said.
“Shame on the government”, for her part wrote the deputy EELV Sandrine Rousseau on Twitter, renamed X, speaking of “extraordinary news”. “It’s a victory for ecological struggles and freedom of association, a defeat for Darmanin and his liberticidal excesses”, also launched on X the EELV mayor of Grenoble Éric Piolle.
The former leader of insubordinate France (LFI) Jean-Luc Mélenchon tackled him “the macronie and the “republican arc” [qui] wanted to violate the law by prohibiting a league of civic associations”. “The Council of State says stop the authoritarian drift of power. Macronism is outlawed. A new disavowal for Darmanin and Macron”, continues the deputy LFI and coordinator of the party Manuel Bompard on X. “We do not dissolve an uprising”, added the MEP Manon Aubry for whom the Minister of the Interior and the government have suffered a “stinging defeat”. “There are still a few safeguards to the great liberticidal drift started by Emmanuel Macron” wrote, still on X, in the same direction the deputy LFI Aurélie Trouvou.
Same story on the side of the Socialist Party (PS), its first secretary Olivier Faure arguing that “the Council of State reminds the government that public freedoms and the rule of law are not subject to its goodwill”. “Earth uprisings will continue to alert and expose those who dangerously neglect the climate emergency,” he adds.
In a brief four-line press release addressed to the editorial staff, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin for his part affirmed “to take note of the decision of the Council of State”. “The ministry nevertheless recalls that this decision does not prejudge the decision that the Council of State will take on the merits concerning this dissolution”, is it written on this same press release. A rhetoric also taken up by the Macronist deputy Sacha Houlié for whom “the decision of the Council of State […] does not in any way legitimize past or future violent actions”.
Jordan Bardella, the president of the National Rally, tackled the “incompetence” of the government which “has just offered a victory over the state on a platter to the far left”. “This retrograde and decreasing movement, adept at sabotage, destruction and anti-cop violence, will feel its wings growing,” he also harshly criticized.
