Despite the action of proclimat activists, the AG of TotalEnergies took place – RT in French

Several environmental NGOs have tried to prevent the holding of the general meeting of TotalEnergie, this May 26 in the morning. Failure for the activists who faced a police device.

Force of order and tear gas against sit-ins and degradations: it was a general meeting under high tension for TotalEnergies. On the morning of May 26, environmental activists wanted to disrupt the annual meeting of shareholders of the oil giant, Salle Pleyel, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris.

The climate defenders who tried to block access to the event, sitting or lying in front of the concert hall door, were dislodged by the police, who notably placed a tear gas canister in the middle of the group.

The day before, security guards and police had positioned themselves around the Pleyel room, deploying barriers to prevent environmental sympathizers from accessing the premises, which did not prevent some of them from going there. to arrive at.

Among the hundred activists present around the concert hall, AFP noted members of the following NGOs: Alternatiba, Friends of the Earth, ANV-COP21, Attac, Greenpeace, Scientists in Rebellion and Extinction Rebellion. Most were posted behind the police force, at the entrances to rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. During the intervention of the peacekeepers to drive away the militants who had succeeded in infiltrating, several journalists were jostled.

In parallel with this action in Paris, activists from the NGO Extinction Rebellion went to La Défense (92) in front of the Total tower, sticking posters on the glass walls of the building on which one could read: “In case of climate emergency, breaking the ice”, which some of them did.

Asked about the action targeting the General Assembly of TotalEnergie on May 26 by France Info, Agnès Pannier-Runacher was measured. According to the Minister for Energy Transition, it is necessary to “distinguish between form and content. And the bottom line is the question posed by these actions, which is a very good question. However, she deplored that ecological issues are put forward in the street “even as activists have raised the debate within the GA”.

AG of TotalEnergie: activists outside, shareholders inside

In fact, TotalEnergie shareholders must vote on the group’s climate strategy, but also on a motion by the shareholders’ organization Follow This, which asks the group to align its emission reduction objectives with the Paris in 2015. Among these 17 committed shareholders are La Banque Postale Asset Management, Edmond de Rotschild Asset Management and La Financière de l’Échiquier. Follow This holds almost 1.5% of the energy group.

“Thank you, thank you for doing it!” Sandrine Rousseau for her part launched to the attention of the ecologists present before the General Assembly of TotalEnergie, which was finally able to begin around 10 a.m. in a tense climate.

Questioned by BFMTV / RMC, the deputy Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV) drove the point home. “Thank you to them for denouncing the hypocrisy around these companies which have nice speeches, which have glossy brochures which talk about sustainable development at every corner of the paragraph”, while they “are binge on the crisis” and have “no kind of morality, no kind of consideration for others and for the climate”.

TotalEnergie is not the first group to have been targeted by environmental movements. The general meetings of multinational oil companies Shell and BP were also disrupted, as was that of Barclays bank, accused of financing the expansion of hydrocarbon projects.