Attaching oneself to the net of Roland Garros or to the decor of the Opéra Bastille, holding sit-ins on roads to block them, throwing orange paint on the facades of Bercy, Matignon and the Ministry of Ecological Transition… Since April 2022, Dernière Rénovation has multiplied actions of civil disobedience and its activists sometimes end up in trials, like those of January 2023 in Castres and Paris for “obstruction of traffic”. What is the claim of this movement which declares “We are the last generation capable of preventing a societal collapse ”?
Eco-terrorists or non-violent civil disobedience movement?

Since their actions in France took place at the same time as those of Just Stop Oil , which caused a public outcry by throwing soup on Van Gogh's Sunflowers , mashed potatoes on Claude Monet's Meules , or paint on the front of a London Aston Martin dealership, the two movements were happily confused.
Yet, in the wake of the Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil movements, Last Renovation is a different environmental movement. It uses non-violent civil disobedience to alert on government inaction on climate change. And those who take part in these actions are often young people, most of whom are getting involved for the first time, aware that the emergency is there. Last Renovation is one of the 11 campaigns of the international A22 network , a "collective of projects engaged in a frantic race to save humanity".
As the Extinction Rebellion movement clearly explains on its website: " We have tried everything to get climate action from the government that could save us from the worst of climate change. The marches by the millions around the world, the scientific reports from the IPCC, the legal actions, the pleas, the repeated COPs without ever obtaining a binding agreement, the alerts at the UN and the symbolic actions all over the world... When we ask, argue, prove, alert, we are not listened to and nothing changes (...) Unfortunately, we cannot count on our government to save us from the announced catastrophe. Declared outlaws by its own courts, it is now up to us, ordinary citizens, to enforce the commitments that the State refuses to comply with."
Some key figures are striking: 20% of greenhouse gases come from the residential or tertiary sector, 12 million people are in a situation of energy insecurity and 4.8 million homes are classified F or G in France, or 17% of housing.
With such arguments, one rightly asks the question: where are the real eco-terrorists?
Why “Last Renovation”?

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Although their shock actions have caused a lot of noise, they have not made their primary motivation clear enough.
While Just Stop Oil in England focused on the end of fossil fuels, Dernière Rénovation chose this name in relation to its first claim: to focus on the thermal renovation of the French housing stock, basically on the famous "energy sieves" but also in reference to the fact that "we are the Last Generation of the Old World".
A claim: energy renovation of housing
The movement is demanding that the government commit to renovating the French housing stock by 2040. It goes further by requesting the development of a financing system that would cover all of the work for the most modest owners.
In the texts, French laws provide for the elimination of energy sieves within 10 years. But, Dernière Rénovation points out: "at the current rate of the government, that is to say 2,500 sieves renovated per year, it would take 1,900 years to get rid of them. The executive is incapable of enforcing the laws of the country, especially when they are laws that will benefit the poorest."
The movement thus takes up a Tribune by Maxime Combes, economist, Daniel Ibanez, co-founder of the Annual Whistleblowers' Meeting and Françoise Verchère, figure in the anti-NDDL fight: "Of the 700,000 MaPrimRénov subsidies released in 2021, the number of housing units removed from the status of "thermal sieve", initially announced at 80,000 by the government (PLF 2021), was reduced to 2,500 by a recent report from the Court of Auditors. At this rate, it will take more than 1,900 years to renovate the country's 4.8 million thermal sieves."
An ecological, economic and social ambition

In addition to the fact that these thermal sieves let citizens die of cold in winter and heat in summer, they force these poorly insulated homes to be overheated in winter and air-conditioned in summer, which is a burden on energy efficiency. By insulating these homes, we could reduce energy consumption, and therefore the CO2 footprint of these homes, while restoring purchasing power and comfort to their occupants.
Another argument: in addition to reducing CO2 emissions, these renovations should create thousands of jobs and benefit everyone, particularly the poorest who suffer most violently from the consequences of climate change.
"A concrete, achievable, socially just and popular ambition which, once won, could lead us to other major victories," concludes Dernière Rénovation .
The movement does not plan to stop there. As it specifies, thermal renovation is only its first objective. The movement then wants to "catalyze massive popular uprisings in the next few years" in order to "force the required change."