More than a hundred citizens who are members of Code Rouge overflowed the police force set up in front of the TotalEnergies depot in Wandre, in the province of Liège, and chained themselves to the entrance and exit gates in order to block the site, announced Saturday morning the citizen coalition.
Earlier in the day, several hundred other activists deployed around the site of the French company located in Feluy, in Hainaut, in order to paralyze its activity. In total, a thousand people are taking part in this action aimed at denouncing the responsibility of the fossil fuel industry in the climate and social crisis and demanding the exit from fossil fuels.
The action in Feluy
©RTL INFO
©RTL INFO
©RTL INFO
The action in Liege
©RTL INFO
The objective of the operation, which began around 7 a.m., is to denounce the responsibility of the fossil fuel industry in the climate and social crisis and to demand the exit from fossil fuels.
The activists on the spot are equipped with banners calling for the abandonment of several projects of the French multinational such as the construction of a heated oil pipeline in Tanzania and Uganda. Legal observers from the International Federation for Human Rights, Amnesty International and the League for Human Rights as well as parliamentarians from different legislative assemblies are also on the scene to ensure that the right to freedom of peaceful assembly is respected and protected.
“The citizens involved denounce the climatic, social and human disaster caused by the activities of companies like TotalEnergies” explains Chloé Mikolajczak, spokesperson for Code Rouge, present on the blocking. “TotalEnergies has made huge profits in recent months in a context of deep social and climate crisis, where families no longer know how to pay their energy bills. The French company announced once more 10 days ago that it would distribute exceptional profits of 2.6 billion euros to its shareholders.”
Code Rouge also appeals to the Belgian authorities: “Instead of pointing the finger at individual responsibilities and citizens, the Belgian authorities must go following those who are really responsible for this crisis. Companies in the fossil fuel industry must pay to finance a just transition that gets us out of these energies and which must be initiated urgently.”
