A small group of climate activists conduct an operation, deflating SUV tires to denounce the use of excessively polluting vehicles, in Paris, in November 2022. BENJAMIN GIRETTE FOR LE MONDEOn Thursday, October 24, the second chamber of the Paris police court (which judges minor offenses) had just examined the cases of a priest who had been a prostitute’s client, a cab driver who had refused to pick up a woman and two children without a clear reason why, and a 23-year-old repeat offender who had driven at 128 km/h instead of 70 km, when Maxime D.’s turn came. In 2022, the environmental activist was arrested after slipping lentils into the tire valves of SUVs (“sport utility vehicles,” the imposingly large vehicles that have become very popular in France in recent years) in order to deflate them.
The 35-year-old took to the stand, saying he was “not proud of having caused harm to others,” even though he considered his actions “just and necessary.” On July 25, 2022, he went to Paris’s 11th arrondissement for a night out, every detail of which he still remembered. “It was after 13 days of heatwave.”
The police report, which was quickly read out by the presiding judge, focused on other elements: Maxime D. and his accomplice, with their silhouettes bent down toward a car’s tires. The pots of lentils and the tire valve tool that were found in Maxime D.’s bag. Leaflets reading “we’ve deflated your SUV’s tires, don’t take it personally,” left under the windscreen wipers of those designated as “polluters.” The judge listed the affected vehicles: Toyota, Mercedes, Tesla, Audi, etc. That night, seven SUVs with deflated tires were found along the boulevard, as well as in an adjacent street.
‘Duty to act’
The judge looked up from the case file. Maxime D. had something to add. He described the “terrifying future” he sees behind each heatwave, the “scientific consensus” on climate disruption, “political inaction,” the “collective endangerment of our society,” etc. With his pleasant smile and almost childlike curls, he said that, on that evening, his “duty to act” in the face of climate anxiety had taken the form of a green lentil seed.
“I’m not saying that the answer is simple, but some mistakes are unacceptable. The switch to SUVs is a threat, so these people are making a conscious choice to make things worse.” He added a reference to the “bitter taste” that the death of Paul Varry, a cyclist killed by an SUV driver, on October 15, had left him with: “Our action wasn’t enough, and public opinion needed a death, except that there have already been deaths,” he said, referring to pollution-related fatalities.
The prosecutor shook his head after a witness for the defense, an “engineer in a carbon footprint study office,” came forward to explain the dangers associated with SUVs. “I’m not going to plead the defense of SUVs, and say that it’s great that people are using increasingly polluting cars,” said the prosecutor, who raised the question of the action’s “usefulness”: “[Do] we sincerely believe that the person who has had his tires deflated is going to say to himself: ‘Oh dear, what have I done, I’m going to stop taking my car?’ No, they’ll be angry and your message will be inaudible. [You’re] not helping the climate by doing this, [you’re] harming it.”
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