“Special Envoy” followed three activists, moved by their determination to change things and their visceral fear of global warming.
by Catherine Pacary
They are called Rachel, Erwan and Hugo. All three are members of environmental organizations which advocate civil disobedience, block the roads or throw soup on master canvases. For “Special Envoy”, the cameras accompanied them for several months, in order to better understand their personalities and their motivations. Even if it means adopting their methods of action.
The immersion of the first images is thus steep, while journalists film from the interior an operation to block traffic by activists of the last renovation, including Rachel, 20, Rouennaise and animator for children. A van tries to force the passage, a driver who shows the muscles and insults … Faced with them, six demonstrators sitting on the bitumen hold a banner, imperturbable. Until they get lying to the ground, first by a delivery man, then by the police.
Rachel understands the hostility of these motorists, who are just in the wrong place and at the wrong time. Especially since the action is not made to make them aware of them, but for the media noise to go up to the ears of the government and forces it to take effective measures to protect the planet.
Infiltrated cameras
Same determination in Erwan, 27, computer scientist, whom the infiltrated cameras follow during an illegal intrusion into the Arkema factory, in Pierre-Bénite (Rhône), south of Lyon. The industrial site has already been the subject of several reports, notably in “Green de Rage”, in October 2022, on France 5, while the chemist is accused of rejecting “eternal pollutants”, such as perfluorés.
We can regret that the brief sequence devoted to the co -founder of extinction rebellion, Roger Hallam, omitted his questionable declarations on the holocaust (“a simple bullshit in human history”), which earned him a putting Apart from the movement in 2019. On the other hand, there is the justification common to all “radical ecolos”, namely that, faced with the climate urgency, the “classic” demonstrations are useless.
Another common point: fear. Visceral in Rachel, convinced that she has “no chance of dying of old age”, because of the famines and the climatic wars which will fall on earth. Likewise at Erwan, whose climatic stress increased further in the summer of 2022, marked by heat waves and fires.
We find this anxiety in Hugo Raguet, 35, scientist and lecturer in Blois, member of scientists in rebellion, the French branch of Scientist Rebellion. For his wife and two children, he assumes to take risks: “If I have to give ten years in prison to give them ten years of life expectancy, I immediately sign.”