Anti-globalisation and climate activists teamed up with “yellow vest” protesters and Basque nationalists on Saturday to protest against the G7 meeting in the southwest coastal town of Biarritz, saying the world leaders don’t do what they say and that the rich-poor divide is growing due to the lack of action from them.
At a G7 counter-summit on the French-Spanish border some 30 km (18 miles) south of the G7 venue of Biarritz, in the twin cities of Hendaye, France and Irun, Spain, 50 NGOs met to protest at economic and climate policies pursued by the world’s leading industrial countries and to promote alternatives.
Police counted 9,000 protesters during the event, although march organisers estimated turnout at 15,000.
“Today, we are not talking to these seven heads of states. Today, we are talking first and foremost to the population,” said Aurelie Trouve, a spokeswoman for Alternative G7, one of the NGO collectives that organised the march.
More than 13,000 police officers are guarding the summit site in Biarritz under fears that anarchist groups might have tried to derail Saturday’s protest, which has been billed as a peaceful family event.
Four police officers were lightly wounded on Friday (August 23) after protesters fired a home-made mortar near the anti-G7 counter-summit in Hendaye. Police arrested 17 people for hiding their faces.
On Sunday (August 25), activists plan “disobedience” actions and the self-described radical environmentalist group “Action non-violente COP21” will defy a ban on demonstrations in Bayonne, 8 km (5 miles) east of Biarritz, with a march carrying official portraits of French President Emmanuel Macron which it says have been taken from town halls around the country.
