French philosopher and writer Michel Onfray slammed Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg following her recent visit to the French parliament, labelling her a “cyborg”.
The philosopher wrote an article about the Swedish teen on his website entitled “Greta Science” in which he vociferously attacked Thunberg, L’Obs reports.
“This girl has a cyborg face that ignores emotion — no smile, no laugh, no astonishment, no amazement, no pain, no joy. It makes think of these silicone dolls that announce the end of the human and the advent of the posthuman,” Onfray wrote.
“It has the face, the age, the sex, and the body of a cyborg of the third millennium: its envelope is neutral. It is unfortunately what mankind is heading to,” he said and added: “What soul lives in this body without flesh? It’s hard to know.”
Onfray has also been highly critical of the students who follow Thunberg and her weekly protests, calling them “a flock of sheep of this generation who believes himself free by bleating the catechism that adults teach them”.
Reacting to Thunberg saying she would stop going to school for a year to continue her climate change activism, Onfray said: “Indeed, why learn things at school when you already know everything about everything?”
Onfray also raised his ire against the politicians and others who fawn around the young Swede saying that the worst thing “is in adults who enjoy being humiliated by one of their creatures”.
The philosopher is not the only one in France to speak critically of Thunberg’s visit. Several politicians from the conservative Republicans and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally also slammed the invite.
“To fight climate change intelligently, we do not need apocalyptic gurus, but scientific progress and political courage,” Republican MP Guillaume Larrivé said.
National Rally MEP Jordan Baredella went even further saying: “This dictatorship of permanent emotion, moreover when it is based on children, is a new form of totalitarianism. It is beyond ridiculous.”