I'm Damien Gale, a Guardian environment correspondent
and I've been covering environmental protests
for the past five years.
During the last week of April,
climate activists mobilised around the world
to protest continued climate breakdown.
It does feel like we're losing,
to turn that around we're going to have to step up our game.
Tell me what will work better then, I'll do it.
As some worry that climate activists are losing the fight,
I visited protests in England and France
to see if there's anything British protesters can learn from their neighbours.
In the UK when climate protesters want to block a road
they sit down in front of it.
In France they build an actual wall.
The bottom line here is that French people are simply better
at protesting than English people.
And we're saying OK fine this is what you criticise us for,
we'll do what, you know, the mainstream has implied you we should do,
namely stop disrupting the public on mass.
We're doing that for these four days,
if the media pays attention like it does when we really disrupt stuff,
then so much the better.
If not, we have a renewed licence for public disruption.
After five years of Extinction Rebellion's main tactic
being to annoy people,
they announced a break from public disruption
and a mass protest to work out tactics going forward
and to attract new supporters who until now,
may have been put off by arrests.
... Who want us dead
and those who want to lift the human song
to his highest gift.
If we are to survive ...
After a couple of hours I started to wonder if the activist fears
that the protest may not have enough action to gain press attention
may be coming true.
But would this new direction be successful in attracting more activists?
In my regional group we've seen more people join
since saying look we're not going to be causing disruption
to the public.
I've never had any intention of getting arrested,
because I don't at this point in my life
feel ready to be arrested.
And I, that was one of my concerns before joining was,
like would I feel pressure to prove my credentials and my commitment
by getting arrested.
The main impact
that Extinction Rebellion have had over the past nearly five years,
is to shift the Overton wall towards
more of an acceptance that climate breakdown is
one of the main issues that we're facing as a civilisation, as a society
and more of a willingness to actually try and do something about it.
But at the same time, people do accept
that despite that change in public opinion, not a lot has materially changed.
It seems as though they don't really have a lot of ideas
about where they turn to next.
Climate justice now!
Oh look they've blocked this bit now, this wasn't blocked earlier.
Brothers storm together, let us stand.
So it's like we've got
the issues of XR,
we've got the people from XR, we've got the street theatre of XR,
but we just don't have the non-violent civil disobedience.
Still got the disruption.
The police are blocking the roads for them.
So has becoming part of the culture defanged XR
or is that going to be a force multiplier?
While XR carried on their experiment in non-disruptive protest in London,
climate activists around the world were staging their own demonstrations.
We decided to head to France,
a country that has seen much more confrontational
protest tactics in recent months.
From the rolling pensions process that have engulfed the country,
to a demonstration by the group we're going to see
that left one person in a coma.
We're in a town called Castres, in the south of France.
On the way to a site of a proposed climate camp,
it has a group called Le Soulèvement de la Terre.
I can't get that right first time.
I've been practising all week.
We've heard that the police might close it off, so we're trying to get there
before the weekend begins,
just to make sure that we're on site for when the protest begins.
Into the darkness.
So we don't know where the site is yet, but guessing it's around here.
We don't know where anything is yet, because we can't see anything.
The camp turns out to be on a farm in the path of a new motorway
linking Toulouse and Castres.
The farmer told us that if the road is built through his fields
the water table they depend on will be drained.
Total difference,
first of all in the food.
It's an hour and a half break for lunch,
the man was handing out quiche.
Back in London you'd just get the Hare Krishna stall,
vegan curry and rice,
but here things seem to be a lot, lot more ...
Well this is like one of Insulate Britain's protests,
but with a thousand times as many people and absolutely no cops.
Everyone's throwing banana skins.
It's a Mario Kart style.
The French process is obviously so hyped up.
There's no police here so they've started hurling bananas,
I just got hit in the head with a banana skin.
So they're getting ready for a race.
And the boat is winning.
Oh no.
We've got some guys here who are actually building
a wall across the road.
And on the other side it says the A69 will not pass.
An actual wall.
Which is just completely next level.
I was thinking in the UK when climate protesters want to block a road
they sit down in front of it
and in France they built an actual wall.
No, tell me.
Oh, really?
They're driving straight into the wall and we'll keep it going?
Yes.
Oh, I see.
While protesters in Parliament Square and Castres
wrapped up their police facilitated protests,
a more radical flank of the fight
against global heating began to mobilise.
Protesters from Germany, Italy, Sweden, Mexico,
the United States, New Zealand and the UK began blocking roads
with no end date set for their actions.
How politicians, police and the public around the world react is yet to be seen,
but the past week has shown that climate protest is now
made up of a whole ecosystem of tactics.
And as some groups become more moderate,
some others are becoming more desperate.