Climate activists target sports cars at Paris motor show

Climate activists glued themselves to sports cars Friday evening at the Mondial de l’Auto, a major car show in Paris.

Video from the group’s Twitter account showed around a dozen campaigners crouching next to the front of a line of red sports cars or holding up a banner, and shouting slogans.

“They are denouncing a polluting industry that is trying to ‘greenwash’ its image with the help of ‘green’ vehicles, but which continues to promote individual car ownership as the transport of the future,” said a statement from the group.

They called for an end to advertising for individual ownership of private vehicles and improvements in public transport.

The group said 11 people had been arrested.

Extinction Rebellion is one of a new wave of environmental campaigners using direct action and civil disobedience to draw attention to their cause.

Activists from the group have also been travelling around Paris at night to switch off store signs and advertising screens at a time when the government has called on people to cut back on electricity use.

Activists from another group, Just Stop Oil, targeted an Aston Martin showroom in London, spraying it with orange paint last Sunday.

The same group was behind the action at London’s National Gallery last week when two campaigners threw tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” painting then glued themselves to the wall below it.

The gallery said there was only minor damage to the frame and the painting itself was unharmed.