Climate activists target branch bank in Paris, blame it for financing TotalEnergies

By Nur Asena Erturk

ANKARA (AA) – Climate activists on Friday targeted a French branch bank in Paris which they blamed for financing oil giant TotalEnergies, local media reported.

Activists of Extinction rebellion, Fridays for Future, and Attac movements hung a banner in front of a BNP Paribas branch in the French capital, which read "the bank of a dying world," according to French daily Liberation.

The activists accused BNP Paribas of financing French energy company TotalEnergies in major oil projects in Africa, namely EACOP (East African Crude Oil Pipeline) and Tilenga.

A video filmed and posted on Twitter by independent journalist Clement Lanot showed that activists spray-painted the facade of the bank and denounced its alleged help in the destruction of the planet.

The Tilenga project is located in Uganda, operated by TotalEnergies (56.6%), in partnership with China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC).

"It includes the development of six fields and the drilling of around 400 wells from 31 locations," according to a statement on TotalEnergies’ website.

The EACOP project "consists of the construction of a buried 1,443 km oil pipeline ... with a heat tracing system," since the oil from Tilenga needs to be kept at a temperature of 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) for transportation, the source added.