Two Greenpeace climate activists burst onto the stage during the opening of the global summit with nuclear energy in France on March 10, interrupting a speech by French President Emmanuel Macron and International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi as they were greeting world leaders. This was reported by the French television channel BFMTV and the agency Reuters.
The protesters were dressed in black suits and ties and held banners with the Greenpeace logo and the inscriptions “Nuclear energy = energy insecurity” and “Nuclear energy fuels Russia’s war.”
One of them asked Macron: “Why are we still buying uranium from Russia?”. In response, the French president declared: “We produce nuclear energy ourselves.”.
In addition, about fifteen Greenpeace activists tried to block the arrival of the motorcades near the summit venue in Boulogne-Billancourt, a suburb of Paris.
France is hosting the second world nuclear energy summit, where leaders from different countries are discussing the development and future of nuclear energy.
“For Greenpeace France, holding such a summit is an anachronism, an event completely disconnected from reality and the lessons to be learned from the tragic events Russian aggression in Ukraine, strikes on Iran and the consequences of worsening climate change” – Greenpeace France stated.
Despite having its own uranium enrichment capacity, France also imports enriched uranium for its nuclear power plants, in particular from Russia. This is confirmed by the latest customs data released by the French government.
Greenpeace protests in Europe are taking place regularly. Thus, in June, activists of the organization climbed the tower of the railway station in the Finnish capital Helsinki and for several hours unfurled a banner with the inscription “Time to Resist”.
In July, a court in Germany ordered a man and a woman to compensate for damages for illegally entering a slaughterhouse in Lower Saxony and illegally filming. That same month, German police arrested two people who may have sprayed red paint on the building of the federal chancellor’s office.
In the fall, environmental activists in Germany also tried to prevent the logging of the Sündenwäldchen (“Sin Forest”), a forest area located on the edge of the Gambach coal mine.
