Greenpeace’s ship will not be allowed to dock in the port of Nice during the United Nations conference and will not take part in a major maritime parade.
The Greenpeace vessel, which was expected to join around thirty scientific ships from various NGOs in Nice (Alpes-Maritimes) on the sidelines of the UN Ocean Summit, has ultimately been denied access to the port. The Arctic Sunrise, part of Greenpeace’s international fleet, was scheduled to remain docked for three days starting Wednesday.
Other vessels—including Thalassa and Tethys II from Ifremer, Germany’s Meteor, Spain’s Odon de Buen, Italy’s Gaia Blu, Ray Dalio’s Ocean Explorer, the Tara schooner, Jean-Louis Étienne’s Persévérance, and WWF’s Blue Panda—are expected to take turns in the port, welcoming the general public through Thursday, followed by summit delegates.
However, a decree—issued, according to the city council, in coordination with the prefecture and at the request of Ecological Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher—revoked the participation of the Greenpeace ship. Greenpeace Executive Director Mads Christensen called it a “political decision (…) absolutely unacceptable.”
Controversial At-Sea Action
Minister Pannier-Runacher criticized Greenpeace for dropping around fifteen large rocks into a protected area of the Mediterranean on May 21 from the Arctic Sunrise, in an attempt to block bottom trawling. “More than ten tons of rubble in a marine protected area, under the pretext of campaigning against bottom trawling, in a zone where trawlers don’t even go—this is profoundly shocking,” she said. Greenpeace responded that the action aimed precisely to stop ongoing illegal activity.
Last Saturday, the Arctic Sunrise had already been barred from participating in a parade of dozens of vessels organized for World Oceans Day, on the eve of the summit’s opening. “It’s simply absurd. For more than 50 years, we’ve been defending the oceans, especially with our ships (…) and now we’re being excluded from a demonstration in favor of the ocean?” protested Jean-François Julliard, Executive Director of Greenpeace France.
Yvan Griboval, organizer of the parade in the bay of Villefranche-sur-Mer and the Baie des Anges in Nice, told Greenpeace he did not want to risk any protest action during the event. He assured AFP the decision was personal and had “no political connotation.”
