On Tuesday 17th May 2011, ten BDS activists from the UK, from various groups including London BDS, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the BDS National Committee, as well as Innovative Minds travelled to Paris to show solidarity and support for French BDS activists in their action outside the Veolia AGM.
Three French BDS groups had come together for the action: Association France Palestine Solidarite (AFPS), Campagne BDS-France and CAPJPO EuroPalestine.
Veolia has long been complicit in Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian land.
Veolia is helping build and operate the Jerusalem Light Railway, a project which the UN Human Rights Council has declared is a "clear violation of international law". The tram line runs across stolen Palestinian land connecting illegal Israeli settlements to Israel thereby helping consolidate the occupation.
Jerusalem Light Railway
Veolia also runs bus services for Israeli settlers runing on apartheid highway 443 which is built on expropriated Palestinian land which until recently was totally barred to Palestinians.
Apartheid Road 443
Veolia's shameful crimes in Palestine also includes the Tovlan landfill site it operates in the occupied Jordan Valley where it helps Israel dump its toxic waste on to Palestinian land next to the Palestinian village of Abu Ajaj. The villagers now suffer persistent breathing problems and their animals have shorter lives and more still births are recorded.
Tovlan landfill site
The Veolia AGM was held at the conference hall in the Carrousel du Louvre, a shopping centre located in the Louvre Palace.
Inside the Carrousel, around 35 bds activists from France the UK united to inform Veolia's shareholders of Veolia's crimes in Palestine.
Whilst security personnel prevented banners from being unfurled and prevented filming of the action they did not prevent the activists from holding placards and giving out leaflets to shareholders as they entered the AGM.
In the AGM, shareholder after shareholder raised concerns about Veolia's actions in Palestine and the resulting loss of contracts around the word due to the BDS movement. Their questions dominated the AGM and received applause from the floor.
Veolia's chairman clearly shaken, abruptly cut the microphone, but it was too late. The BDS activists had succeeded, the message was out, Veolia's dirty secrets were out and Veolia's shareholders were asking questions and demanding answers.
"One of the first people we campaigned for [at IHRC] was Mu'allim Ibrahim Al-Zakzaky and 1000 of his supporters which were put in prison. All his comrades were put in prison and then eventually all their wives were put in prison and then all their children were put in prison including a three year old child who was ill in the prison and then what the Nigerian authorities were saying is that they should receive money to feed the prisoners when they have put the whole family and whole community in prison.."