Environmental campaigning NGO Greenpeace France announced plans on Thursday to cut 32 jobs, to compensate for a fall in donations since 2022.
The proposal to reduce the organisation's workforce from 138 full-time equivalent positions to 106 was presented to staff representatives on 17 and 18 March.
“While Greenpeace France is funded exclusively by private donations, it has recorded weaker growth in donations in recent years... in a strained economic context,” it said in a statement.
The organisation told French news agency AFP that between 2018 and 2021, donations increased by 26 percent, but since 2022 this growth has dropped to 7 percent.
"The situation requires Greenpeace France to exercise the greatest financial caution so that it can continue its environmental protection campaigns in France and internationally,” the statement added.
TotalEnergies sues Greenpeace over claims it 'underreports' emissions
The organisation is supported by more than 240,000 members, 90 percent of whom make regular donations, and raises around €31 million this way each year.
Greenpeace France said less money had been coming into the organisation over the past two years from donors, attributing the fall to rising prices in France.
Laurence Veyne, its co-executive director, told AFP: “This situation is also worsened by difficulties in reaching donors by phone. All of these factors are weakening our model, and we must take action. We have to acknowledge that this is a difficult moment for the organisation and its employees."
Veyne said Greenpeace International, to which Greenpeace France transfers up to €9 million each year to fund other offices, is not able to intervene in structural problems such as those faced by the French branch.
You still can't sink a rainbow, Greenpeace boss says 40 years after bombing
Greenpeace in the headlines
In April 2025, Greenpeace France released a report accusing France of indirectly supporting Russia's war in Ukraine through continued trade in fossil fuels, fertilisers, and nuclear materials. The NGO highlighted a stark contrast between public declarations of solidarity with Ukraine and economic practices that benefit the Kremlin.
In June that year, Greenpeace activists stole a wax figure of French President Emmanuel Macron from the Grévin wax museum in Paris and placed it in front of the Russian embassy as part of a protest urging France to stop gas and fertiliser imports from Russia.
Greenpeace report reveals France’s double standards in dealing with Russia
In October 2025, Greenpeace France and two other environmental NGOs hailed a court ruling that said that TotalEnergies misled the public about plans to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, after the groups challenged a campaign launched in May 2021 on the company’s website and in the media.
The case focused on around 40 messages about the company’s name change and its stated shift to cleaner energy. The environmental groups won the removal of messages about carbon neutrality and the energy transition.
In November, Greenpeace France hit out at the resumption of nuclear trade between France and Russia, after activists observed the loading of a tanker in northern France with reprocessed uranium bound for Russia.
Greenpeace published footage it said was shot by its activists of around 10 containers with radioactive labels being loaded on to a cargo ship in Dunkirk.
The Panamanian-registered ship, the Mikhail Dudin, is regularly used to carry enriched or natural uranium from France to St Petersburg, according to Greenpeace.
(with newswires)
