The ecologists bark and the 4x4 passes

Tuesday October 05, 2004 (Release - 06:00)

At Jeep, not of innovation this year but a superb prototype. It is called Rescue, and it is of the strapping man. Green metallized camouflage, 2 meters broad frame, tires of 1 meter diameter, adjustable suspension in height for the passages to ford, infra-red cameras... Saturday morning, this monster, designed for the operations of research and rescue, makes dream one tripotée of bées mouths which handle caméscopes and cameras for the immortaliser. "Enormous", hardly manage to articulate Michaël and Thierry, from Toulon for the World one. One is a mechanic, the other, simple amateur of "beautiful motors". Their sides, Jean-Christmas and his girl friend, rather clear-sighted: "a similar trick, it is necessary to need some!" Breaking this moment of collective celebration, strident whistles tear the crammed alleys of the show. Five militants anti4x4.net leave the signs "Jeepollue".

"What it is dad?", question a small girl. "Of the ecologists, my darling. They say that the cars pollute planet... But they drive car like everyone." A young woman, army of her sign, stresses: "Last model at Jeep, three times more CO₂ in the atmosphere." "Miss, announces the dad, it calmly is not Jeep which pollutes, it is everyone." Gaël, which bump with the SNCF and which does not have a car, the courage of these five activists admires having to manage sometimes aggressive passers by. "Here, people come to dream in front of cars, it is not that which will make them change opinion." The hostesses of Jeep let make, indifferent as the majority of the visitors who enquièrent potentialities of the last model. Such this financial director of a sugar group which wants to replace its old cross-country. The ecologists, it is not "not against" but that does not relate to it. "I live in the island of the Meeting, over there the roads are bad, I roll only in 4 X 4..." Manner of saying that everyone is not equal vis-a-vis the large car: some have the right to have some, others not.

Apprentices mechanics photograph the ecologists in front of the cars. "It is anything. Pff, a bus, that pollutes similar, then is not necessary to exaggerate." Olivier, member of the Network Action Climate tries to explain that a bus embarks between 60 and 80 people at the same time, but the kids already left. A man with a moustache stops: "Of course that 4 X 4 pollute. If they is cars great spaces, as they say, they do not have anything to make downtown But, you know, people want always more: larger, larger... Me, I do not have the means, I have Nevada. But with three children, I do not have the choice."

A man distributes orange leaflets. It is anti-anti4 X 4. It denounces the ecologists "who agonissent of insults the driver to the red light and burst the tires the night". On its leaflet, specious arguments: "Much of owners of 4 X 4 regularly place their vehicle and their time at the disposal of the community to come to assistance of the victims of floods..." It is bread blesses for the ecologists: "does A your opinion, the climatic disordered states like the floods, that come from where? It is inter alia because one emits many of too much CO₂ which one finds with such problems."