Defending Civil Disobedience in Court? Development and Reception of Defense Strategies for Environmental Activist Defendants in France

In a context marked by the proliferation of mobilizations and activist actions, as well as by changes in prosecution strategies adopted by judicial authorities, a significant increase in the number of trials involving environmental activists has been observed in France since 2022. In this paper, I focus on one movement which emerged in opposition to a road infrastructure project, that has been the subject of numerous lawsuits. Initially led by residents, this mobilization subsequently brought together a wide range of actors and was characterized by a plurality of forms of action, including demonstrations, legal appeals, and tree occupations. Since 2023, 135 individuals have been prosecuted in 62 trials, particularly in connection with tree-occupation actions. In order to examine activists’ engagement with the judicial arena and legal tools, as well as the reception of these strategies by judicial actors, this study draws on the observation and full transcription of approximately twenty trials, as well as on around twenty interviews conducted with defendants, lawyers, and members of the mobilization’s legal team. Based on the analysis of these data, I advance three main findings. First, I observe a process of specialization among lawyers and members of the mobilization’s legal teams who are involved in the vast majority of the trials, thereby constituting cause lawyers (Sarat et Scheingold, 1998). The former are engaged in left-wing lawyers’ unions and seek to place their legal practice at the service of social movements within the field of criminal law. They maintain regular contact with members of the legal team, who are responsible for connecting them with defendants and listing the trials. Although lacking formal legal training, these activists gradually develop a form of “procedural capital” (Spire et Weidenfeld, 2011) and thus act as legal intermediaries. Second, I observe a standardization of the defense strategies deployed in court. Indeed, the majority of the defense strategies identified rely on legal provisions relating to the “state of necessity” and freedom of expression. This standardization can be explained both by the repeated involvement of the same lawyers and legal support team members, and by the repetition of trials, which are almost systematically characterized by the same charges and forms of action. Under these conditions, these strategies are largely anticipated by the small number of magistrates working in the local court where these cases are heard. Although they sometimes express weariness at the prospect of repetition of the same hearing, they frequently hand down acquittals - nearly half of the defendants having been acquitted. However, my study confirms the observation made in the literature that court decisions represent only a minor component of the repression directed at activists (Codaccioni, 2025, Di Ronco & Selmini, 2024). Prior to the hearings, activists denounce violent arrests carried out by police officers, as well as the judicial supervision measures imposed by investigating judges. Aimed at preventing further offenses pending trial, these measures concern 50 of the 132 individuals prosecuted and are characterized by bans on access to the cities where the mobilization is taking place.