Stage 10 of the 2022 Tour de France was interrupted by climate activists blocking the road. The delay lasted 10 minutes until the police and a senior race official, Yann Le Moenner, pulled the half a dozen protestors off the road. It’s the second major French sporting event to be targeted after a similar protest at the French Open at Roland Garros.
At that event, a protestor wore a shirt claiming there are 1028 days left and here one person wore a shirt with the counter now down to 989 days left. It’s a reference to the IPCC report that says there is only so much time left before the damage to the earth’s climate becomes irreversible.
“Since the government doesn’t care about the climate crisis, we need to come and take over the Tour de France to refocus attention on what matters for our survival. We need to make our government react as they lead us to the slaughterhouse.”
Climate activists movement Derniere Renovation
The protest took place 36 kilometres from the stage’s finish, with the peloton happy to let a large breakaway take the victory. The large gap between the break and the peloton allowed ample time to safely neutralise the race and ensure all the riders were able to stay safe. Alberto Bettiol, who was off the front of the break at the time, simply rode through the blockade but race organisers forced him to stop as they did for all of the other riders.
After 10 minutes of waiting, the Tour de France race director Christian Prudhomme gave the signal to resume.
The stage was won by the Dane Magnus Cort who has had an eventful 2022 Tour de France. After being in every break whilst the race was in Denmark and wearing the polka dot jersey for days, he now has another Tour de France stage win to go with his first in 2018’s Tour. Ironically, that was also the last Tour we saw the race stopped for protests.
