A bizarre rumour that swept across rural France from the 1970s to the 1990s has resurfaced to illustrate the disdain some sections of French society have for environmental issues.
The rumour claimed mysterious helicopters were releasing snakes into the countryside.
At the time, regional press carried reports of people claiming to have found mysterious crushed boxes after seeing helicopters in the area. They were often photographed holding the boxes near collections of dead or injured snakes.
The government refused to take the claims seriously, despite receiving hundreds of letters from people urging it to do something.
In 1981, a TV report on France 3 Jura interviewed two members of the local hunt who found two dead vipers while preparing a clay pigeon shooting range for a contest.
They said local children claimed to have seen a case dropped from a helicopter near where the dead snakes were found. The children had allegedly recovered the case and found a dead snake inside.
Blame later shifted from forest owners to pharmaceutical companies because, at the time, France was ramping up production of a serum to treat snake bites.
By releasing snakes from helicopters, the rumour went, pharmaceutical companies were both ensuring a supply of venom, and also demand for their serum, because more people would be bitten.
In the 1980s, blame shifted once more – this time towards environmental campaigners. They were believed to be releasing snakes as a food source for buzzards and other raptors, which had recently been protected from hunters by the government.
An article in La République du Centre newspaper went further, reporting that snakes had been found in a box marked ‘Ministry of Ecology’, which had been dropped by an EDF helicopter – effectively blaming the state itself.
Author Eric Aeschimann has used the rumour as the title of his recent book, Les vipères ne tombent pas du ciel, which seeks to examine why government efforts to reach environmental targets such as reducing CO2 emissions are so unpopular with many French people.
Eric Aeschimann
In his book, Mr Aeschimann highlights backlash against ecology not only from opposition politicians exploiting the issue, but also from lower socioeconomic groups who see environmental policies as restrictions imposed by authorities who have little understanding of their impact on ordinary people’s lives.
Recent anger has focused on ecologist MP Sandrine Rousseau’s 2022 calls to ban barbecues, and on the government’s zones à faibles émissions (low-emissions zones) initiative, which many people unable to afford newer, less polluting vehicles saw as unfair.
“As I wrote the book I remembered the rumour from the 1980s and saw it already contained all the elements of a structural animosity against ecology,” Mr Aeschimann said.
He explained that many people see environmental policies as top-down technocratic measures, a sentiment now amplified and exploited by the French right and far right.
Mr Aeschimann said he was optimistic that things could be turned around, and urged ecologists to shift away from technocratic, moralistic attempts to change individual behaviour toward a broader economic and social vision of ecological transition.
“The first steps towards the social security state we have in France began in the 19th Century and were only fully established in 1945,” he said.
“[In the same way], I am confident that we will eventually have an ecological state in France.”
