Climate activists nab Macron portraits, divide French judges

Is stealing a presidential portrait a prison-worthy crime? Or a laudable act of civil disobedience? Courts around France are grappling with this question in response to an unusual new environmental movement that's aiming to push French President Emmanuel Macron to do more to fight climate change.

One by one, environmental activists around France have removed Macron's official portraits from more than 130 town halls this year, from the foothills of the Alps to the Left Bank of Paris.

Their point: Even as Macron portrays himself on the global stage as Mr. Climate , the centrist, business-friendly president isn't acting boldly enough to change his own country's planet-damaging ways.

They're notably angry that France has lagged on its international commitments to increase use of renewable energy and reduce emissions. France remains well behind its European neighbours in its use of renewable energy.

The portrait-removers have been facing trials around the country , with some fined, others acquitted. An appeals trial of the first court case was held last week in Lyon with the ruling still pending, and a new trial is scheduled later this month.

The protesters don't fit a single mold one's a math teacher, another works for the SNCF national rail company, another's an organic vegetable farmer.

At last week's trial, defendant Helene Lacroix-Baudrion argued that the portrait removal was "an act aimed at taking care of life and our environment."
In September, a Lyon court acquitted two activists, ruling that they had a "legitimate motive" and that "climate upheaval is a constant fact that seriously affects the future of humanity."