The state of emergency decreed by the French government banned the demonstration on 29^th November marking the beginning of COP 21 and demanding climate justice. Certain organisatiosn maintained a call to show themselves in the street by forming a human chain from Place de la République to Place de la Nation, involving from 5000 (police) to 10000 (organisers) participants.

There was also a call for a demonstration protesting against the ban on demonstrations. The police were much more repressive towards this demonstration. The following statements were issued during the evening by the NPA.

Free all anti-COP 21 demonstrators now! No more police State!

Climate justice demonstration gathering 5,000 people is being brutally repressed by the police. Using tear gas and clubs, making tens of violent arrests, the goverment did not hesitate to go all out in order to stop the demonstrators from opposing the COP 21 Conference. The government allows remembrances of the November 13^th victims, sports events, concerts, etc, to be held but represses demonstrations. The government is not concerned with protecting the demonstrators but with implementing its policies.

EDF (the formerly State-owned electricity company), BNP Paribas (one of the biggest banks), Air France (the formerly State-owned airline), GDF Suez (the formerly State-owned gas company), all of them sponsors of the COP 21, are among the biggest polluters worldwide. Dictators from around the globe are welcomed with honors by Fabius (Foreign Affairs minister) and Hollande, but the people who want to protest for a better world are being repressed. The November 13^th attacks revealed a world in decay.

Change the system, not the climate!

Stop the polluters, not the demonstrators!

Hundreds of anti-COP 21 demonstrators are currently surrounded and being massively arrested by the police on République Square in Paris. Among them are NPA spokespersons Christine Poupin and Olivier Besancenot, and several dozens of other comrades from the NPA, Alternative Libertaire and Ensemble. These arrests are proof that the special measures stemming from the state of emergency are effective not against ISIS’s terrorism but against all those who exercise the most fundamental right of demonstration. While the heads of States will be meeting tomorrow in Paris at the COP 21 Conference, all those who do not want to let them decide of the fate of the planet and humankind are being repressed. After targeting environmental activits with house arrests and searches yesterday and the day before, today they are being arrested while demonstrating.

No more police State!

Free all demonstrators arrested in Paris.

NPA, November 29^th at 6pm, Paris

Free all demonstrators now! Stop the repression!

The government has announced 289 people arrested and 174 put in custody. Regarding the NPA, we know that several dozens of our members were arrested, while they were attempting to demonstrate peacefully on République Square. It is also the case of members of Ensemble, Alternative Libertaire, Solidaires... Most of them are in the police precinct of Bobigny (near Paris), with about a hundred other demonstrators.

Several activists seem to be in custody, wothout our knowing where or why. The gathering was literally attacked by the police, to the point where hundreds of demonstrators, beaten or teargassed, had to seek refuge in the adjoining streets. The government denounced “inacceptable violence” from the demonstrators. This lie is shameful.

The NPA commends the success of the demonstrations in many towns. The NPA denounces the special measures implmented, in particular in Paris, where the whole city will be locked down, supposedly to protect the leaders invited to the talks of the COP 21, the leaders who bleed and pollute the world.

We demand the immediate release of the demonstrators and that no one be charged.

NPA, November 29^th at 10.30pm, Paris