Attack near Toulouse caps weeks of actions against Elon Musk’s company in the US and Europe
~ Rob Latchford ~
Eight Tesla cars were burned completely and four others seriously damaged in an arson near Toulouse, France in the small hours of Monday (3 March). According to a local paper, the attack on a dealership in Plaisance-du-Touch is estimated to have caused damage worth more than 700,000 Euros. Investigators said the fence was cut and several fires were started.
An anonymous statement claimed responsibility for the arson, directed against the “acceleration of the fascist, patriarchal, ecocidal and colonialist project”. According to the declaration, “while the elites multiply the Nazi salutes we decided to salute in our own way … With this act we participate in the call ‘Welcome spring, burn a Tesla’, in the international movement targeting Tesla from Germany to the United States via the Netherlands, and more broadly in the anarchist conflict”.
The Toulouse fire is one action among hundreds carried out against Tesla in recent weeks. On 19 February a Tesla store in Salem, Oregon, was targeted by live ammunition, after already being subjected to an arson attack the previous month. The next day in Milan, Italy, antifascists wearing Elon Musk masks invaded a Tesla showroom, shouting, “Musk thrives, democracy dies”. Previously, on 22 January, German antifascists projected a huge image on the Tesla “gigafactory” near Berlin, with the words “Heil Tesla” and a photo of Musk making a Nazi salute.
In the United States, rallies have been held every week since Elon Musk’s appointment to the Trump administration. Over the last weekend, demonstrations under the slogan “Tesla Takedown” were reported at fifty Tesla locations across the country, with the ones in New York City and Tucson, Arizona, drawing hundreds. The rallies aimed at pushing Tesla owners to “sell their vehicles, get rid of their shares and join the picket lines” as a “vote of no confidence against Elon Musk”. Roads were blocked in front of the dealerships, and a sign reading “Burn a Tesla: Save Democracy” could be read.
In one week at the beginning of February, Elon Musk’s fortune fell by $40.9 billion, the result of a collapse in sales and a boycott of the Tesla brand, particularly in Europe, where the company posted a spectacular drop in sales (45%) over one year.
Top photo: Contre Attaque
