QA few days after regaining freedom, environmental activist Paul Watson spoke this Saturday, December 21 at Place de la République in Paris. “We are going to put an end to whaling in the world, one way or another,” he assured during this press briefing organized to celebrate his return to France. “We will continue our missions. We will oppose Iceland's whaling and, if Japan tries to return to the Antarctic whaling sanctuary, we will be there,” insisted the 74-year-old American-Canadian.
International figure in the defense of whales, Paul Watson was detained in Greenland for five months, before Denmark rejected an extradition request from Japan. He arrived Friday, December 20 afternoon in France, where his family lives and where his arrest had sparked an outpouring of solidarity, and declared this Saturday that he was eager to “spend Christmas with (his) children” and to see his little ones. -children for the first time in six months. “It’s my priority, but we will return to sea,” he also promised. The Sea Shepherd association “has a boat in Bermuda, which will go to Iceland next June. We also have a boat in Australia ready to return to the Antarctic sanctuary if Japan goes.”
More than 4,000 letters received in prison
For her part, the president of Sea Shepherd France Lamya Essemlali, present alongside him during the press briefing, specified that Paul Watson “received more than 4,000 letters in prison, including more than 3,000 from France”. “There have been more letters of support from Japanese citizens than from Australian citizens,” she also declared, indicating that “less than 2% of Japanese eat whale meat” and that the association “does not has nothing against the Japanese people.
Asked about a possible message to the Japanese government, Paul Watson replied that the country must “obey international laws. Killing whales in an international whaling sanctuary is illegal. […] We are not protesting against Japan's whaling. We simply ask that (this country) respects the law.”
“We have a huge responsibility to protect the ocean”
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Faced with a crowd of a few hundred people who came to attend the event during which artists such as Polo & Pan performed in the rain this Saturday afternoon, Paul Watson was pleased to see that “the ocean is important for so many people in France”, a country which has “an incredible heritage linked to the ocean”.
France is “the second largest maritime surface in the world and we have an enormous responsibility in terms of protecting the ocean,” added Lamya Essemlali, calling for the country to be “the locomotive in protecting the ocean” . “If what happened with Paul Watson could trigger that, we really would have won everything. »
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