A french case of climate civil disobedience on trial

In recent years, ecological civil disobedience1 experienced a resurgence in the public, media and legal spheres, sometimes coming up against the repressive system in European countries2. From the public arena to the criminal courts, ecological civil disobedience transforms the powerlessness of citizens into a strategy of action against states and carbon-majors, helping to highlight their responsibility and/or lack of human rights protection in the Anthropocene3. The communication aims to present the French case of the damage caused to the Cram-Chaban mega-basin by environmental activists in the name of defending water4. This case provides an opportunity to discuss what is "invisible" at first sight through the ecological necessity defense argument and shows how environmental activists try to politicise the climate cause. While the material damage caused by environmental activists to the CramChaban mega-basin was punished by the criminal court of La Rochelle on the grounds that one can't violate someone else's property and take justice into one's own hands, a number of questions remain unanswered. These relate to a number of more "invisible" aspects that the criminal justice system helps to keep in the shadows (in this case a legal saga which highlights the complexity and ineffectiveness of court decisions particularly in climate matters). It will show how climate activists use the courts to politicise their cause, and how ecological civil disobedience can be interpreted as civil society's response to the disobedience of the French state, or as the beginning of civil society's enforcement of a legal decision