In Paris, groups of activists — the leaping, bounding, and wall-scaling sort — have found an added urgency to their purpose as an energy crisis looms.
In 2020, Wizzy Gang was the first parkour group to go around the City of Lights to use their skills to switch off wasteful shop lights to fight light pollution and now more than ever, save energy. Shortly after, another group, On the Spot, followed suit.
The groups, instead of being seen as trespassers, are described more as ‘non-violent vigilantes’ upholding an over-a-decade-old, much-ignored ordinance requiring stores to switch off signs and window displays from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. every day.
The group On the Spot shared in an interview with the New York Times that while going around ‘enforcing’ the ordinance is a legal gray area, all police they’ve encountered during their rounds have been supportive of the so-called Lights-Off initiative, so long as the parkour athletes cause no damage to property. They also have the signoff of the City Council.
“They are right to take action,” Dan Lert, a Paris deputy mayor in charge of the environment, told the New York Times. “It’s also thanks to them that we’ll put an end to these shocking habits.”
“We’re kind of a generation that is bearing the brunt of global warming,” said Mathieu Brulard, 27, a Wizzy Gang member. He added that he no longer believed “that the solution will come from political leaders,” and that these lights-out patrols were just the latest example of a younger generation ready to take action.
While the initiative sounds small next to the breadth, and depth of the energy crisis that’s hounding Europe, the ordinance, which also is also decreed in smaller cities across the country, if followed, could actually save enough electricity to light up 750,000 households every year.
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