France warns of 'radical' stance that could 'depress a generation' after Greta Thunberg singles out country

Emmanuel Macron and his government on Tuesday warned teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg that her “radical” stance risked “depressing a generation" after she singled out France at the UN.

The Swedish 16-year old green icon tore into world leaders at a UN climate summit on Monday, accusing them of betraying her generation by failing to tackle greenhouse gas emissions, repeating the words "How dare you" four times.

The same day, she and 15 other young activists filed a complaint at the UN against five countries, including France, for not doing enough to ward off global warming.

The complaint accused Germany, France, Brazil, Argentina and Turkey of failing to uphold their obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, signed 30 years ago.

The largest polluters in the world - the United States, China and India - did not ratify the protocol. In a terse response,

President Macron criticised Greta's attack, saying: “There are lots of citizen’s actions that are useful. Here, such very radical positions are liable to antagonise our societies.”

He denied that the “French or German government” were blocking any green transition, saying they were “stopping our coal activities, our fossil fuel production”.

Mr Macron has styled himself internationally as a champion of environment issues abroad, but climate activists accuse him of failing to take enough concrete measures at home to fight climate change.

His government leapt to this defence too, with ecological transition minister Brune Poirson warning: “You cannot mobilise with despair, almost hatred.”

Education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer added: “France is today a locomotive in (fighting climate change) and Président Macron has done a lot on the issue.

You mustn’t create a generation of depressed people over this issue,” he warned.

Mr Macron has been seeking to gild his green credentials since placing a high-profile green second on his party’s list for European elections, seeing young green vote as crucial to municipal elections next year and the presidentials in 2022.

He managed to annoyed Poland on Monday by calling on France's climate activists to "go protest in Poland”, which is heavily dependent on coal.

He said they were preventing the EU reaching its plan to eliminate coal by 2050. Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sek said he hoped that "in this area as well as in other areas, (Mr Macron) will refrain from this kind of lecturing which, in his case, has become tiring”.

Greta's UN speech saw her come in for mockery from Donald Trump.

"She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!" the climate-skeptic American president tweeted afterwards.

That drew a furious online response from 16,000 users, with many slamming Mr Trump for attacking a young girl who suffers from Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism.

Veteran conservationist David Attenborough has, meanwhile, taken aim at Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison for not giving a "damn" about coal emissions and his lack of action on climate change.

"Australia, it seemed to me, were saying all the right things - previous governments were," he told national broadcaster ABC. "And you are keepers of an extraordinary section of the surface of this planet, including the Barrier Reef," he said "what you say, what you do, really, really matters." Ends