This week—which may go down in history in France for several reasons—Greta came to Paris to speak at parliament.

Before she got here, the right-wing Les Républicains party decided to shit a brick. Julien Aubert—a deputy from the Vaucluse region—said:

I respect freedom of thought…, but don’t count on me to be applauding the short-wearing prophetess.

As for his colleague Julien Larrivé, he provided us with this gem for the ages:

To fight climate change intelligently, we don’t need apocalyptic gurus, but scientific progress and political courage.

This double dose of douchebaggery had of course nothing to do with both of them being candidates for president of Les Républicains.

They insinuated it was abnormal for a 16-year old Swedish non-scientist be invited to talk in the chambers of parliament about climate change. Which, to be fair, does sound a bit silly.

But in fact Greta—and the scientists she came with—spoke in a conference room in a totally different building.

I was starting to feel a bit sorry for her before she even arrived. That she’d have to stand in front of low quality adults like these. That is, if they even showed up.

And then Greta came to Paris and kicked some ass and it was totally awesome. Up on the podium, she said:

Some people decided not to come to this meeting. It does not matter. After all, we are only children, you do not have to listen to us. On the other hand, you have the duty to listen to scientists, and that's all we ask you: unite behind the scientists.

Boooooom!

We, the children, are accused of being alarmists, but have you even read the latest IPCC report? Or maybe you simply are not mature enough to state things as they are? Page 108. Everything is there. We have only eight and a half years old before we have used up our carbon credit. And because we are the only ones who dare to say it, we have become the bad guys. But has the IPCC report been hidden from you? The Paris Agreement too?

In. Your. Face!

In response, the presidency passed a message to her via the Ministry of Ecology:

Thank you so much. Don’t give up. Keep protesting. You give us the hope for action.

A short time later, when asked about this, Greta replied:

You haven’t even understood what we’re doing. Instead of thanking us, do something!

By now, I had realised that there was no need to be sorry for Greta. She fights back like Mohammed Ali. It kept me chuckling all afternoon, despite the arrival of the second heatwave of the year. It got to 37°C in Paris on Monday.

Then, that same afternoon, the lower chamber of the French parliament voted to ratify CETA—the free trade agreement between the EU and Canada—seen as a catastrophe by ecologists.

Yesterday, it got to 38°C in Paris. Today, we expect 42°C (108°F), which would been the highest temperature ever recorded in Paris.

The chuckling is already over.