Ecologist activist Thomas Brail has been removed from the tree where he was on a hunger strike. Brail was protesting against the construction of a highway and has been hospitalized after being evacuated.
After spending ten days in a plane tree in front of the Ministry of Ecological Transition in Paris, Thomas Brail, an opponent of the A69 highway, was removed on Sunday morning, according to the National Tree Monitoring Group (GNSA), of which he is the founder. This activist had climbed to the top of the tree to protest against the construction of the A69, the future highway between Toulouse and Castres. He had also started a hunger strike for twenty-four days and planned to begin a thirst strike this Monday.
The evacuation operation took place at around 6:30 am at 246 Boulevard Saint-Germain, with the intervention of the police prefecture and the Paris firefighters. “Thomas was forcefully taken to a Paris hospital. He is weakened, he has lost 13 kilograms, but he was holding on,” says GNSA. Another “squirrel,” as these activists call themselves, who was in the tree with Thomas Brail, was also evacuated and placed in custody, the organization said.
Chloé Sagaspe, a Paris councilor in the 11th arrondissement for Ecological Transition and Climate Plan, criticized the government for “acting in the early morning to hide the struggle of nature defenders.”
“The prolonged hunger strike situation and the announcement of an imminent thirst strike posed a major danger to the health and even the life of Thomas Brail,” justified the Ministry of Ecological Transition in a press release, which initiated this operation. “This protective intervention will not prevent a dialogue from continuing,” it is stated.
