Dear friends,
It has been brought to our attention through various sources that Adrian Franks of Eco-Action France is an infiltrator selling information on activist groups to corporate clients.
Adrian Franks has made himself known to various organisations and movements in Europe as one of the central members of a small direct-action group, Eco-Action, (also known as Earth First! France) which has its base in Equihen-Plage. Adrian Franks has presented himself as an activist focussed on the oil and arms industries and animal liberation. In this guise, he has attempted to weave himself into the European movement active on these issues. He has become involved in ENAAT (the European Network Against the Arms Trade), A SEED Europe, Earth First! and People’s Global Action. In some cases, he has claimed to be working very closely with organisations and networks (such as Corporate Watch UK), but is almost unknown to these organisations/movements.
To his corporate clients, Adrian acts under the surnames Mayer and Lechene. His intelligence agency, Risk Crisis Analysis, is registered in both France and the UK under Adrian Lechene. According to sources, he has created a corporate-oriented information-market on the activities of European activists. He has sought to convince corporate clients of the necessity of his services by way of dangerous exaggeration and misrepresentation of the aims and action-philosophies of movements/organisations he has infiltrated. He has apparently presented these networks as violent, ‘extremist opposition’ which plan to harm the families of corporate executives. While all of our movements/organisations Adrian Franks/Mayer/Lechene has infiltrated are very clear in our commitment to impede if not stop the activities of certain corporations, we are all committed to non-violence. Mr Franks/Mayer/Lechene’s portrayal is therefore not only a lie, but exposes our movements to possibly more aggressive, violent strategies by corporations to counter our activities.
We are aware that such a denunciation has very serious implications for the person accused. We have been very careful not to accuse without substantiation, and to act upon information rather than speculation. We have confronted Adrian Franks/Mayer/Lechene with the information we have about his activities. He was unable to refute the evidence we found against him. Further, we have contacted the companies he has approached (as well as those we suspect he has approached) to make clear that while we oppose and will continue to oppose their ecologically and socially destructive activities- we are non-violent. We have also made clear to them that they will no longer receive valuable information from him. In so doing, we hope to break the working relations between Mr. Franks/Mayer/Lechene’s and these companies.
We strongly recommend you and your organisation, to cut all ties with Adrian Franks/Mayer/Lechene. Take him off mailing lists (95, rue de la Marine, 62 224 Equihen-Plage, France, email: eco-action.ef.mala@wanadoo.fr) and prohibit his participation in gatherings. We ask you to forward this warning to any groups or individuals within your networks so that they do not unwittingly encourage his involvement in their activities. We would be interested to know any further information others might have on his activities within the environmental and social justice movements.
AMOK
A SEED Europe office
Corporate Watch UK
Janssen & Janssen
Oilwatch Europe
For further information, contact Janssen and Janssen, (info@burojansen.nl, AMOK (amokmar@antenna.nl) or A SEED Europe(aseedeur@antenna.nl).