Traffic was held up on both the sides
of the Mont Blanc tunnel on Friday due to a protest by
supporters of Italian civil-disobedience group Ultima
Generazione (UG) and their French counterparts from Dernière
Rénovation.
It is the latest in a series of controversial protests that the
two groups have carried out to highlight the need to address the
climate crisis.
Concerned citizens from the Italian group started their protest
at 12:30, holding up a banner than read 'Ultima Generazione - No
Gas, No Coal', and they disrupted traffic for about an hour.
Police had to call in firefighters to break the chains with
which the protestors had locked themselves together before
forcibly removing them.
"A government should offer prospects of a stable future and the
ability to have a family to new generations," said Alessandro, a
21-year-old UG member.
"Instead, more and more people of my age don't want to have
children because of the devastating future that the government
is consciously condemning us to.
"This is scary and unacceptable.
"The government is not protecting us and for this reason I will
continue to take this sort of action until our requests are
met".
Ultima Generazione is demanding the immediate halt to the
reopening of decommissioned coal plants and the scrapping of new
gas-drilling projects in Italy.
It also wants the government to take action to increase the
energy generated by renewables in Italy by at least 20GW each
year.
UG's actions have included blocking rush-hour traffic in big
cities, disrupting people using private flights, spraying paint
over the offices of institutions linked to fossil fuels and
stunts involving important works of art.
On Wednesday UG protesters threw blue and pink paint at the
entrance of La Scala before the premiere of the iconic opera
house's 2022-23 season.
UG and Derniere Renovation are part of the A22 network of
climate civil-disobedience groups active in several countries,
such as Just Stop Oil in the UK, Stop Old Growth in Canada and
Declare Emergency in the United States.
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