A marked, southwest of Lille, residents and environmental activists met on Tuesday, April 26, to denounce the construction of a logistics center of 100,000 m2 on agricultural soils.
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Braded in the grass, three wooden crosses whose painting is flaying. Behind, it’s the memorial. “We regularly deposit wreaths there,” says Pascal Peperstraete, at the origin of the mobilization against the project to set up a giant warehouse on the ZAC Illies-Salomé. “100,000 m 2 , do you realize? It’s 16 soccer fields!” A coffin, crosses, again and a calicot: “Here lies the climate plan of the MEL”. Mel is the European metropolis of Lille that crystallizes the anger of inhabitants of this corner of Weppes, southwest of Lille.
The activity zone project goes back far, “but we never thought of a huge project. We knew by the voice of the North that it would be a warehouse for Heineken. The mayors of Illies and Salome [ The two municipalities on which the ZAC will be fitted out] have said nothing. It is still a little strong! “Rales Bertrand Coustenoble, farmer and beer brewer in Marquillies, the village next door. Farmers from here were generally tenants of the land that the MEL bought “from Parisian owners for 8 euros per m 2 “. Before reselling 25 hectares to the promoter PRD for 5 million euros, after servicing work. A second batch of 23 hectares is announced. We are talking about a promise to sell, but no one knows anymore.
It is on Bertrand farm that activists are gathered this evening. He reminds us, “we are not alone. There are mobilizations throughout France today”. Tables are installed, almost an air of tavern if the time was not so serious for these residents and for environmental activists from Lille in reinforcement. The construction machinery began to work on the land in February. 2>
“all-cam”
Co -founder of the collective of inhabitants, Pascal Peperstraete returns to the microphone on the main stages of this “crazy project”. Everything goes there: “opacity” with which the MEL “decided to rampage the land”. The hydrological risks on this plain of the Weppes where the water table is almost outcrops. The floods, which they already know “and which will worsen.” The “all-cam”, which signs a project deemed “exceeded, ecocid and another time”.
Raymonde Bricout came next to Douvrin, a few kilometers away, where the huge zac of Sizaf spreads. 460 hectares next to the French of mechanics and, above all, immense warehouses, “but some are empty! There are quays but no trucks”. Others run very well, too much for Raymonde, an old man from the Levi’s factory who closed in 1998. She plagues against trucks: “It’s all the time. From 3:30 a.m., necessarily, with Colissimo, Geodis … “In this Flanders sector, close to the Lille metropolis, traffic is already saturated morning and evening. “There are regular alerts for fine particle pollution”, points Céline Bonnard, a figure of the collective.
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