An update on the activities of the collective Scientifiques en Rébellion

« Scientifiques en Rébellion » (Scientists in Rebellion) is a collective of French scientists formed in 2020 with the following goals: raising awareness of the seriousness of scientific consensuses around climate change and ecological degradation, and publicly denouncing the inconsistencies and greenwashing of various actors. The collective also seeks to build a balance of power to transform institutions and companies to meet environmental challenges, and reorient higher education and research. Since its creation, the collective has been growing (several hundreds of members today), gathering scientists of various disciplines and career statuses. It operates with various forms of collective public engagement, from writing and speaking in various medias and supporting other NGOs, to joining or organising non-violent direct actions.

Here, we propose to present and discuss some key actions performed by « Scientifiques en Rébellion » over the last few years, taking stock on how groups of scientists may self-organise to participate in the public debate over various key environmental issues. Examples include the following actions and their follow up (in the medias or with judiciary trials): On October 3^th, 2020, scientists took part in marches in airports in several French cities to denounce the climate impact of air travel for the benefit of a small minority of privileged ones. On the same topic, an unauthorized demonstration against private jets was held in Paris in November 2022, in front of the headquarters of Dassault Aviation. On the night of April 9-10^th, 2022, around thirty scientists peacefully occupied the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and gave twelve presentations to call for urgent, radical measures to mitigate the ongoing ecological disasters. On March 4, 2023, a hundred scientists and citizens from various NGOs joined in a funeral procession in Paris to denounce biodiversity losses and health issues associated with the massive use of pesticides, and promote a different agricultural model. Several additional texts and participations in unauthorized demonstrations followed on the question of agriculture and water use. On May 12, 2023, the Scientifiques en Rebellion joined forces with other NGOs to target TotalEnergies and its project to install a floating LNG terminal at Le Havre harbour in France, as part of Scientist Rebellion's international campaign « The Science is Clear ». Other initiatives sought to put pressure on companies either driectly funding or supporting fossil fuel development, such as the BNP-Paribas banking group or Schneider Electric who provide equipment to Totalenergies for the EACOP pipeline project in East Africa.