Last Sunday, my wife wanted to see the Claude Monet home place in France. Since we were already in France for our 40th wedding anniversary, it was an easy trip.
It was a two hour drive from our rental house in Bayeux to Giverny, the home of Claude Monet, so we got up early and drove through the occasional rain towards Paris.
After spending three hours at Monet’s place, we stopped in Vernon for a late lunch. The French really know how to cook. In my opinion, they are some of the best chefs in the world (with apologies to my favorite Mexican restaurant). Magnifique !!
At 3:40, we got back on A13 (a six-lane highway) and headed towards Bayeux, glad that the rain had quit. Within twenty minutes we were driving through a wooded section near Louviers, France and I saw some sort of red smoke drifting across the road up ahead. The drivers ahead of us slowed down to see what was up, and we saw a group of Antifa looking people standing on the edge of the highway waving signs and tossing red smoke bombs on the highway. They were wearing black clothes and hoodies and face masks. Because of the smoke, traffic came to a reluctant stop, and when we did a large group of people poured out of the woods on both sides of the highway and blockaded all six lanes. We were the third car back so we had a ringside seat to this weird scene.
Now that the road was completely blocked, a hundred people (like a team of caffeinated beavers) carried logs and sticks and wood out into the road and built a wood barrier across all six lanes. The barrier was four to five feet high, so there was no driving through it unless you had a bulldozer, and I forgot to bring mine along. We were absolutely trapped.
There was this wood barrier ahead of us with 150–200 Antifa like activists and a growing line of stalled cars behind us that eventually stretched 2-3 miles. This whole thing happened with military precision in the space of 5-7 minutes. Now what?
I looked around at other drivers around us to see their reaction. They appeared to be patient. I wasn’t. We had a destination to get to and I had a wife to protect. I had no idea what this all meant, and it was unnerving how it happened so rapidly.
I said a brief prayer and got out of the car. I went to the vehicle on our right and asked the driver “What is going on?” He spoke limited English, his wife said “it is protest.”
“What are they protesting?”
“Protest against hurting trees.”
Oh really . .
Some of these Antifa-like thugs jumped up on the concrete highway divider and raised their protest flags while others painted French slogans on the divider with spray cans. One painted ecoterrorist on the wall. That’s what they were.
I attempted to speak to two other drivers, they seemed resigned to being hostages trapped on the highway. Another Frenchman walked hundreds of yards through the stalled cars to get to the front lines. He spoke fairly good English. I said “This is so disruptive. What are these people?” He shrugged and called into question the intelligence level of a portion of their anatomy. It sounded even more effective in a French accent.
Suddenly two of the protestors walked back through the cars passing out pieces of paper written in French. I couldn’t read it. I took one from a masked-girl and said “WHAT DO YOU WANT?!!” My language gave me away as an American and my tone gave me away as irritated. She seemed unsure what to say. Then she said “Only 20 minutes” (she lied) and shuffled off.
Another female protestor came over and tried to give us a French treat to pacify us. I said “We don’t want your treat, we want you to get out of the highway and stop being a nuisance.”
She replied “If you don’t like France, stay in America.”
I said “We like France, we don’t like some of the people in it” staring at her eyes over the bandanna concealing her face. “Whatever your problem is, you aren’t helping it by inconveniencing innocent people and trapping them on a public highway.”
My wife advised her to get a job instead.
“I have a job” she retorted as she dashed back to the mob. Maybe she does, maybe George Soros is paying her and her friends to disrupt the lives of innocent people.
Finally we heard sirens in the distance as the police arrived and a riot squad (gendarmerie) assembled. They somehow got their van within a quarter mile of the blockade. I was glad to see them.
The police formed a group with shields and helmets marched towards the rioters. There was a stand-off for about 30 minutes.
I turned to one of the policemen standing between the motorists and the mob and asked—him through a translation app on my phone—what do these people want?”
“They are protesting a new highway road towards Rouen. They say it will hurt the trees.”
“Are these people aligned with Extinction Rebellion?” I asked.
He stared at the question for a moment. Then he said “OUI !!” (that means yes).
I offered to help remove the wood from the highway. He said they would take care of it. Finally, the police removed the wood from one lane on each side of the highway and the riot squad pushed the mob back towards the forest.
The police motioned us to get in our cars and drive through the open lane. Since we were only three cars back we got out right away. I feel for the people who were two miles away from the blockade—they were in for a long long wait. I rolled the window down and said “Good job sir” as we passed one of the policemen. He saluted me and pointed down the road in the direction we were traveling.
We were glad to get going after losing an hour in a meaningless protest/riot.
Extinction Rebellion
There are four basic groups of environmentalists.
Conservationists. These people try to conserve the earth’s resources. Some are driven by false guilt, some by fear of overpopulation, but most see humanity as superior to the animal kingdom.
Biblical Stewardship. These people see creation and redemption as central to the purpose of God and seek to enhance the earth’s beauty, fruitfulness and safety. They have a biblical worldview that includes being fruitful & multiplying and exercising a wise dominion over the earth. They regard humans as producers and stewards, image-bearers within the purpose of God. They believe we are called to subdue the earth, not worship it.
Radical Environmentalists. These people worship creation more than the Creator. They see humanity as polluters and consumers only. They believe that earth is grossly overpopulated and conclude that we can create a Utopian wonder-world if we limit human population and footprint on the earth.
Apocalyptic Environmentalists. These people believe that our world is doomed from climate change, and that at least 50% of earth’s population is irrevocably headed towards destruction. Some of them believe that all of humanity will be extinct in a few short years due to man-caused climate change.
What is Extinction Rebellion? It is an apocalyptic environmentalist group in Europe.
Some of you have heard about climate change activists vandalizing art masterpieces in Europe over the last six months. They are apocalyptic environmentalists.
This includes throwing tomato soup on a Van Gogh painting at the Royal Academy in London, gluing themselves to the frame of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, throwing a black, oily liquid at a painting by Klimt at the Leopold Museum in Vienna, gluing their hands to the road in front of the Scotland Yard, throwing maple syrup at a painting by Emily Carr at Vancouver Art Gallery and throwing mashed potatoes at a painting by Claude Monet in Potsdam, Germany before the climate protesters each glued a hand to the wall.
My solution is simple. People who glue themselves to art institute walls and roadways should be left there for 48 hours. They want to make a scene, the longer they are there the more of a scene they will make (although it is possible after 48 hours they might make a scent too).
Greta Thunberg, the contumacious apocalyptic environmentalist from Sweden is a member of Extinction Rebellion.
These people are committed to this ideology as a religion. In their religion they have no Christ, no forgiveness, no hope, no joy and no resurrection. They are of all men most miserable (1 Corinthians 15:19), and they seek to convert others into arid copies of themselves. They need the Gospel, but most have rejected it already.
Their coin of the realm is fear, their god is creation, their spiritual service is disruption. They are the embodiment of Romans 1:25.
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“If there is found in your midst, in any of your towns, which the Lord your God is giving you, a man or a woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, by transgressing His covenant, and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the heavenly host, which I have not commanded, and if it is told you and you have heard of it, then you shall inquire thoroughly. Behold, if it is true and the thing certain that this detestable thing has been done in Israel….” (Deut. 17:2—7).