--- title: "Communities to Glencore and TotalEnergies: Pay up, end fossil fuel projects" date: 2026-05-28T07:00:49Z modified: 2026-05-28T07:00:49Z permalink: "https://350.org/press-release/communities-to-glencore-and-totalenergies-pay-up-end-fossil-fuel-projects/" type: press-release status: publish excerpt: "" wpid: 175530282 categories: - Featured - Global - Press Release author: ilang-ilangquijano --- As Swiss mining giant Glencore and French oil major TotalEnergies hold their Annual General Meetings today and tomorrow, respectively, communities and advocates in Colombia, South and East Africa, and France held protests to demand reparations and an end to harmful fossil fuel projects. In Colombia, Afro-descendant communities from La Guajira have blockaded Glencore’s train line since midnight of May 23 in protest of territorial dispossession caused by El Cerrejón, one of the world’s largest open-pit coal mines. Protesters will also gather in front of Glencore’s offices and the Constitutional Court in Bogotá. _(Photo release to follow)_ **Helena Mullenbach Martinez,** [**350.org**](http://350.org/) **Latin America Coordinator said:** _“We demand that Glencore pays for the devastation, violence and destruction it has inflicted on communities everywhere. Whilst Glencore executives sit in their AGM boasting of profits of over US$7 billion annually, communities in Colombia are being violently displaced by paramilitary groups serving Glencore’s corporate interests. Over 5,000 Wayuu children have died due to health complications the El Cerrejón coal mine has caused – these are irreparable damages that Glencore must pay for. As Colombia leads the transition out of fossil fuels in Latin America, communities must not be left behind. Holistic reparations, including the return and restoration of ancestral territory, are crucial for an energy transition to be truly just. We will continue to resist fossil capital in all its forms, as we build towards socioecological transitions that give the power back to the people.”_ On May 29, protests will also take place outside of TotalEnergies’ offices in France and across Africa. _(Photo release to follow)_ Hours before TotalEnergies’ AGM, climate activists will stage a demonstration in La Défense, the Paris business district where the oil giant is headquartered. The stunt will expose a stark injustice: French citizens are unknowingly bankrolling TotalEnergies through public institutions and state support, while never seeing a cent of the profits. [350.org](http://350.org/) campaigners point out that the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, a public financial body, channels taxpayer money directly into the company with the French government’s full political backing. TotalEnergies’ executives and shareholders pocketed a staggering [US$5.4 billion](https://totalenergies.com/news/press-releases/first-quarter-2026-results) in profits in the first quarter of 2026, while ordinary French citizens and communities affected by oil and gas projects in Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Democratic Republic of Congo bear the costs of climate damage and environmental and social harm. The message is simple and damning: TotalEnergies privatizes its gains and socializes its damage, with the complicity of the French government. **Fanny Petitbon,** [**350.org**](http://350.org/) **France Country Manager, said:** _“French citizens are paying three times over: at the pump, through their taxes subsidising TotalEnergies, and through the growing cost of climate damage on their daily lives including the unprecedented heatwave hitting the country this May. One month after announcing record profits off the back of the war in Iran, the company arrives at its AGM playing the good guy: capping fuel prices when it suits them, then blackmailing the government the moment taxation of their obscene profits is even raised. This has to stop. We’re calling on the French government to break free from this toxic relationship: end public subsidies to TotalEnergies, stop shielding the company’s destructive projects and permanently tax windfall profits made on the backs of ordinary citizens.”_ In East Africa, activists in Uganda will block TotalEnergies offices in Kampala, demanding that the company stop polluting and address concerns about the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), where the company is a major investor. In Kenya, the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Franciscan Africa (JPIC-FA) will organize a music concert and artivism against TotalEnergies, while in the DRC, Fédération des Comités des Pêcheurs Individuels du Lac Edouard (FECOPEILE) will educate women market vendors in Beni about the oil industry’s harmful effects on local communities. The DRC and Uganda recently signed a [joint communiqué](https://stopeacop.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Joint-Communique-Ug-DR.pdf) on the shared management of natural resources and energy projects along the Albertine Graben, raising concerns that this could lead to the DRC’s integration into Uganda’s oil infrastructure and accelerate hydrocarbon exploitation in the fragile region. **Zaki Mamdoo, StopEACOP Campaign Coordinator, said:** _“Fossil fuel corporations like TotalEnergies continue to generate enormous profits through displacement, extraction and ecological destruction, while ordinary people across the world are forced to absorb the costs through energy poverty, instability and climate crisis. The Global ‘Kick Polluters Out’ Week of Action is an expression of growing international resistance to fossil fuel imperialism and a system that continues to sacrifice people and the planet for private accumulation and corporate power.”_ In Johannesburg, South Africa, communities, unions, and climate activists will gather outside TotalEnergies’ head office to protest environmental destruction, displacement and socio-economic instability caused by the French oil major. [350.org](http://350.org/) South Africa is demanding an end to fossil fuel subsidies and calling on the government to redirect public money towards providing Free Basic Electricity of up to 350kWh, supplied through publicly owned renewable energy systems. **Ferron Pedro,** [**350.org**](http://350.org/) **South Africa Campaigner said:** _“Rising electricity costs are deeply tied to the influence of fossil fuel companies. This is the predictable result of treating energy as a commodity for profit rather than a basic right. We are not just resisting TotalEnergies’ fossil fuel expansion and profiteering – we’re challenging an energy system that continues to benefit a few corporations while failing ordinary people.”_ **Note to Editors:** _These protests are part of the ‘Kick Polluters Out’ Week of Action taking place from 23–30 May, with coordinated actions around the world ahead of the Annual General Meetings (AGMs) of fossil fuel companies, including TotalEnergies and Glencore._ **Media Contacts:** Ilang-Ilang Quijano, [350.org](http://350.org/) Global Media Campaigner, , +639175810934 Colombia: Helena Mullenbach Martinez, [350.org](http://350.org/) Latin America Coordinator, France: Hala Bounaidja-Rachedi, [350.org](http://350.org/) France Digital & Communications Officer, , +33 6 24 03 95 73 East Africa: Abiud Onyach, StopEACOP Digital & Communications Specialist, [abiud.onyach@350.org](mailto:abiud.Onyach@350.org) South Africa: Boitumelo Masipa, [350.org](http://350.org/) Digital & Communications Specialist, , +27 81452 9096