French councils are facing backlash for spending taxpayer money on environmental training courses where staff members pretend to be trees, bats and other living creatures.
The controversy emerged after it was revealed that the ecologist-run council in Lyons paid 3,000 for 20 staff to attend a “workshop on dialogue with living things”.
Similar courses have been conducted in Montpellier, where council employees learned about the “suffering, desires and dreams which emerge from the biosphere”.
The workshops are run by the Laboratory for Interdependences Concerning Humans and Non-Humans (Lichen), where participants engage in species role-play exercises.
The ecologist-run council in Lyons paid 3,000 for 20 staff to attend a “workshop on dialogue with living things” (Stock Image)
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“Representatives of the animals of the river, I invite you to become animals of the river [and] feel the contact with the currents,” instructors tell participants, according to Lichen’s brochures.
The organisation encourages staff to embrace their animal personas, telling would-be bats to “open your wings and your radar. Listen to the echoes”.
Lichen’s unusual organisational structure includes both human and “other-than-human” core members, featuring a weeping birch tree, a poppy, a bear and fungi.
The association claims the birch tree member from Lyons “suffered a brutal tree surgery and since then is weeping more than ever”, saying it relies on Lichen to “deliver a message of peace to humans”.
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The organisation promotes “an exit from anthropomorphism” and brings together humans and non-humans “on an equal footing”, with promotional materials featuring people dressed as trees.
Georges Képénékian, former mayor of Lyons and member of President Macron’s centrist camp, condemned the training expenditure amid government calls for local authorities to make savings of €2.2billion.
“We cannot be living on the same planet,” Képénékian said.
However, the council’s biodiversity chief Gautier Chapuis defended the programme, saying he was “proud of our choices”.
Georges Képénékian, former mayor of Lyons, condemned the training expenditure
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Chapuis argued the training would enable staff to conduct “participative meetings” with residents where they could “consider different points of view, show empathy and take account of all tendencies”.
The controversy reflects broader discussions about human-nature relationships, with recent studies showing growing acceptance of plant communication.
A study last year found that 13 per cent of Britons followed King Charles’s example by talking to their plants.
Similar attitudes were recorded in Australia, where research published last month revealed 14 per cent of respondents considered their plants as family members.