Grenoble tree-lovers’ branch end sit-in

GRENOBLE, France, Feb 12 (AFP) – French police were on Thursday removing the last of a group of environmental activists who climbed up into generations-old trees in a French park to protest plans to cut them down in order to build a sports stadium.

The activists had begun taking turns at staying in the trees, in a park in the eastern city of Grenoble, in November last year.

Some 20 militants were still up in the trees on Thursday, a day after 17 others agreed to come down on receiving assurances that they would not face legal action.

The authorities have said some 200 plane trees have to be chopped down to make way for the stadium, in Grenoble’s Paul Mistral Park.

The protest recalled the 19th century verse by the American poet George Pope Morris, who wrote:”Woodman spare that tree!Touch not a single boughIn youth it sheltered meAnd I’ll protect it now.”

This being France, the media have already invented a name for people who climb up trees and refuse to come down  they were being called “accrobranchists.”

© AFP

                                                              Subject: France news