we-REC-europe

FYEG Documentary team recording Europe, while reclaiming it!

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Sunday, May 25th, 2014 . Madrid, Spain

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REC. the end !

Today we are separating each other. We just took the train to go to Budapest together, and share a last limonata before Gio takes his flight to Madrid to cover the very end of the campaign, and the celebrations (hopefully ! ) with the Spanish young Greens. Me (Marie), I cannot go, as I will be working in the south of France starting from the 26th, so I'll be leaving diredctly from Budapest to Geneva on the 24th, tomorrow. It is really weird to separate after two weeks eating, laughing, sleeping and drinking beers (mostly) together. We hope that the videos were useful for you during the campaign, and that it helped you to get more content and to discover what the other young greens were doing all over the borders !

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Thursday, May 22, 2014. Wien, Austria

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REC. May 22nd 2014 - Wien, Austria

We are today leaving Wien, after two days in the city. These days were cooler and less filled with activities than the rest of our trip, as the approaching date of the elections makes every new event more difficult to organise ( less people available, and more and more restrictions on every campaigning..). So basically, except from enjoying nice fresh beers with the young Greens of Austria, we also recorded a nice video with Emir, who is an active member of the Austrian young Greens and the co-coordinator of the Gender Working Group within FYEG, in a nce park in front of the parliament, on Thursday. Afterwards, we went for distributing flyers with the young greens for the last days prior to the elections in this same park. We tried to organise a meeting with Conchita Wurst but unfortunately this was not possible (what a surprise). No, frankly, this would have been just awesome.

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Wednesday, May 21st 2014. Prague, Czech Republic

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REC. May 21st, 2014 - Prague, Czech Republic

Two days that we are in the beautiful city of Prague, where we arrived on Monday early morning after a somehow sleepless night in the night train Köln – Prague. We came here as we heard from our Czech contacts that Micha and Terry from the German Young Greens and FYEG (respectively Co-spokeperson of FYEG and Member of the Campaign team) were as well coming here as part of their tour against fascism and far right parties, that they organised with the Grüne jügend. However, when we arrived, only Sara and Jakob welcomed us at the train station, explaining that the venue of the German Young Greens had finally been displaced to another day. Ah ! Whatever, the weather is beautiful, and at the usual café of the Mladi Zeleni ( the Czech Green Party) Sicily café, we get a huge breakfast to discuss about our plans for the next days. We will stay for two days in the city, and accompany Sara and Jakob in their coming activities with the young Greens. Sara is as well a young candidate of the list to the European Elections of Mladi Zeleni, and is supported by FYEG.

During the two days, we did so many things that it is very hard to remember it all, but basically, we can resume it in failures and successes:-) Indeed, Prague has been in our trip a real emotionnal elevator, going very down at the beginnng, to finish very high with an awesome video, and great souvenirs. The first day was a bit of a joke, as we went, after lying down for a bit at Sara's awesome place, for a debate between different candidates and personnalities of the Czech Green party, and that, even worse than nobody attending in the public, there was even no one attending the debate from the people supposed to debate ! Definitely, misorganisation is somehow in the Green's blood, everywhere in Europe:-) But this allowed us to have a nice beer while joking about a concert that was taking place nearby. Afterwards, Sara came back to pick us up and go for a postering session in the empty and dark streets of Prague. Indeed, in Czech Republic it is forbidden by the law to poster anything political in the streets, so what we did was pretty illegal (tadaaam) but fun, as it seemed a bit like we were in a James Bond movie. After someting like 10 kilometers walk, we stopped to get beers at a super nice bar nearby the river, and after walked down home.

The next day Sara could not host us, so we moved our stuff to an hostel nearby, and we spent the day distributing flyers next to the famous castle over the city. There were not that many people, but we could record a part of the video of Sara there, and take some nice shoots and pictures.

As everybody was busy this day, we afterwards only got home after a short visit of the city center, to get a rest for the trip of the next day to Wien. We indeed decided to leave te next day in the beginning of the afternoon so we could visit in the morning the « Green boat », a political advertisemnt boat in the very middle of the river, just right down the castle and the famous art bridge of Prague. We arrived there around 11 AM, to find many activists of Mladi Zeleni and the head of the party's list to the European Elections, that we ccould interview. The place was really nice, we were going there by little boat, to join a platform filled with beers, food, transats and green activists : a pure happiness !

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Sunday, May 18th 2014. Paris, France. Europe day.

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REC. May 18th. Paris, Canal Saint Martin. Giant European Flags, heads of lists to the European Parliament elections, Les Jeunes Ecologistes playing bowling...

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REC. May 18th 2014 - Brussels/Lille/Paris/Brussels/Köln/Prague

Ok, so as you might see in the title of this post, this was kind of a...busy day. Kind of. Just for the picture : imagine you came back from one of the biggest and awesomest Pride in Europe a bit late the evening before, and that you have to wake up at 5 in the morning to catch a train - no, 3 different trains ! - to Paris. There we are. And so were we when we arrived with no brain , no eyes, no legs and possibly more DNA at this exact moment in common with a tomato than a human being, to the Brussels Noord trainstation. Of course to take a train that would go to Brussels Midi. And come back to Brussels Nord.

I will make it short and will pass fastly over all the charming cities we crossed on this sunday morning, to finally arrive at the Gare du Nord in beautiful Paris ! And a welcoming sun is awaiting us and calling us to follow him to the Canal Saint Martin, so there we go.

At 11, the animation on the banks of the canal is palpable : many activists from the French Young Greens (Les Jeunes Ecologistes) and the mother Party, Europe Ecologie Les Verts are preparing different activities and the venue of most of the heads of lists in France for the very last full day of campaign for the French Greens. Finally, they arrive around 1 PM and it is time to drop the biggest European Union flag one has ever seen from the top of a bridge. Everything is prepared : the heads of lists are holding the flag, while the Green party has rent little boats for the journalists (and activists) to take pictures. All along the afternoon, pageants will be able to go around the canal thanks to the boats, in embarking with green activists and candidates to discuss the campaign and green ideas.

In the middle of all activities (free beer, free couscous, concerts and speeches), the French young greens' local group of Paris (Les Jeunes Ecologistes Ile de France) have prepared an awesome bowling game to raise the interest of pageants. In a big bowling bowl, stands a young green who, pushed by activists and pageants (often children), drops bowling the "lobbies" : four young green activists dressed up as different lobbies (a GMO banana, a pharmaceutist and nuclear lobbyist, a banker). All of it presented by the co-coordinator of the Parisian young Greens dressed up as a pinguin (of course upset by global warming). How awesome is that ?! The action is really catchy, and, among the kids staying up all afternoon long to push the bowling ball, some heads of lists of Europe Ecologie participate cheerfully to the game, attracting the attention of the media to our struggle against the lobbies in the green party.

At 4 PM, it's unfortunately the end of our stay in Paris for us, and we rush back to the Gare du Nord, the head a bit tipsy and the camera filled with cool pictures and records. The rest of the day is the same as it began : trains, trains, trains. We have to go back to Brussels (in a very comfy 1st class in Thalys), to catch a train to Köln and then take a night train to Prag !

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Saturday May 17th 2014. Brussels, Belgium. Gay Pride

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REC. May 17th 2014 - Gay Pride in Brussels !

Today is a great and awaited day in our documentary tour as for both of us,  it's gonna be our first pride ever, and it's gonna take place in wonderful ... Brussels again !... Where we came back yesterday evening. Brussels is already crazy hot when we wake up from Nicolas' house, and we separate at Brussels Nord because Marie has to go book reservations for the next day at Brussels Zuid : it is decided that Gio would go alone to join the wonderful Unicorn car of Ecolo and Ecolo J in the first place.

And what a wonderful pride ! All communities and congregations are here represented, marching along in a general happiness and loving ambiance, with a great musical background. All political parties are also represented, with funny cars (the one of the Greens is definitely heart shaking wit this huge unicorn), but also impressive one, as is the one of the socialists who just brought a DJ to the party, it seems like. Thousands of people are celebrating equality in the streets of Brussels capital, and of course the FYEG is there to reclaim an Europe of solidarity and equality, as well as to shout for LGBTQ rights. Maggie, the Secretary general of FYEG, wears for the occasion the character of Conchita Wurst with red hair and a black beard... and becomes famous in Brussels !

Coming back to FYEG office after the party with Conchita !

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Friday May 16th , 2014. Vlissingen, Netherlands.

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Today, we woke up early to travel to Vlissingen, a charming little (...very little) town in the South West of the Netherlands with Jeroni Vergeer, a young candidate for Groen Links and FYEG !

We met her in the train going from Goes to the very east of the coast ( yes there's only one train :-)) and could enjoy the time discussing with her about the elections, the campaign, and the reality of the region we were about to discover. "Pretty hard" for the Greens to convince in this constituency, mostly conservative and rural. Who cares ! Jeroni goes everywhere to the contact of the inhabitants !

After distributing flyers all over the city with all her sympathic team, rendez-vous is taken in front of the beach, to meet an official photograph for the campaign, where we enjoy the opportunity to eat a nice ice cream  under the sun of Vlissingen, before continuing the campaign in meeting the local activists. They are all ready for an action on the beach, in order to clean all the plastics and rests that are covering the sand. All the Groen Links start to work, picking up the trash and filling big plastic bags.

When the whole group left, we asked Jeroni to give us an interview, as a young candidate from the Netherlands, from how she felt at one week of the vote, to the topics that were driving her to fight along with the Groen links , and the Federation of Young European Greens as well.

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Thursday, May 15th 2014. European Parliament in Brussels. Debate of the candidates to the European Commission's presidency.

To have more info on the election of the President of the Commission, get here !

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REC. May 15th 2014 - European Commission candidate's debate

After an emotionnal morning at the anti-TTIP demonstration, we had some time in the afternoon to planify for the coming days and also prepare for tonight's big event : the debate between the candidates to the European Commission!

At 6.30 PM, all the Federation of Young European Greens and EGP offices went to welcome Ska Keller, arriving by bike, in front of the European Parliament, where the debate was taking place. Few dozens of hard core activists and campaigners were present at the entrance, shouting Ska Keller's name, holding huge "CHANGE EUROPE, VOTE GREEN" signs, and of course outnumbering the socialists facing us, in support of Martin Schultz.

The debate began at 9 PM, released at the exact same time on many European TV channels and online. We somehow came to get sitted places after huge negotiations and could follow properly one of the best debates Ska never held. Her energy, her willing and her passion was absolutely communicative, among the other candidates Alexis Tsipras (European left), Martin Schultz (PSE), Guy Verhofstadt ( ALDE) and Jean Claude Juncker (PPE).

After 130 minutes of the extremely annoying voice of the Italian TV presentator though, we left very enthousiastic of Ska's performance, more than ever proud of wearing our Green t-shirts !

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Thursday May 15th 2014. Brussels, place Poelaert. Anti #TTIP protest at the European Business Summit.

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REC. May 15th 2014 - Protests with Ecolo J at the European Business Summit

Today we accompanied Laura to join the Belgium Young Greens Ecolo J at a huge protest against TTIP at the occasion of the European Business Summit which was taking place in Brussels, place Poelaert. The protest, initiated by the collectif D19-20, including among others Ecolo J, was gathering activists from various organisations of the left, the Green party Ecolo and FYEG being of course present there. A peaceful and legitimate citizen-led demonstration which will end up with 250 arrestations, water canons and police brutality : a very promising TTIP indeed !

On the way from Liège to Brussels with Laura and Gio

As we were staying at Laura's place, we had to take the train from Liège to Brussels to join the protest, which meant we had to leave at 6 AM, which was ...pretty hard. But fortunately Gio had the best trick to take me (Marie) out of bed, with the beautiful voice of Conchita Wurst, which made me rise like a phoenix :-) Some growls, and a delicious coffee later, we were in the train,and it was quite a (good) surprise to be surrounded in this very attended train by anonymous and young green activists : at some point one of the young candidates of Ecolo in Belgium took the micro to make a call in the train and to announce the demonstration : quite a great energizer !

The demonstration started very slowly (yes it was 7 AM :-)) with all movements standing on the square, discussing and networking. Around 1000 citizens, syndicalists and associative actors were gathering peacefully, in order to protest against the negotiation of the Transatlantic treaty (TTIP) that was taking place just nearby at this very moment. Some time after, however, the ambiance had changed drastically, after a hundred pacific demonstrators were encircled by the police, and arrested administratively, one after the other. After these many arrestations, the water canons were thrown, and the police encircled and arrested massively other demonstrators from other groups against the walls of buildings nearby. This brutal intervention from the police forces led to the arrestations of several members of Ecolo J, a FYEG ex- co-spoke person and Green MEPs, that were released few hours after... just for demonstrating ! Read here the press releases from Ecolo J, the Federation of Young European Greens and Les Jeunes Ecologistes.

Ecolo J and the Federation of Young European Greens, along with the other activists, denounced the arrestation of all the citizens that were there demonstrating peacefully, asking for their immediate release.

We left running through a metro station at the final assault of the police, that happened to be the worse : total, 250 arrestations for a peaceful citizens-led demonstration against TTIP. What are they affraid of ?