Indiction orders were extended until Wednesday, while 1,000 gendarmes remain close to “megabassine” to prevent the formation of a “zad”.
Le Monde with AFP
The authorities remain vigilant around the “megabassine” of Sainte-Soline. The prefecture of Deux-Sèvres extended Monday October 31, and until Wednesday, the ban on demonstrating in the sector which houses the site of a water reserve for agricultural, disputed and invaded briefly on Saturday by demonstrators. In addition to the demonstrations, the texts proscribed in the area any “circulation of isolated agricultural machinery or in procession (excluding residents)” or the sale and transport of “entertainment artifices” and “all flammable products”. >
After a rally of several thousand people over the weekend, around 300 activists lived in a camp on Monday installed in a field near the site, loaned by a farmer opposed to this irrigation project.
These opponents, gathered under the banner of the Collective Bassines Non thank you, plan on this day of Halloween to “distribute treats” to the inhabitants of the surrounding villages, explaining their opposition to this project which they consider as a “grabbing Water “by” agro-industry “, explained to the France-Presse Jean-Jacques Guillet agency, one of the spokespersons of the movement. 2> several thousand demonstrators
“The objective is not to organize a ZAD [zone to defend]”, but to “be on this ground to monitor the site” from a wooden watchtower, built during the Weekend, he added. According to the collective of the uprising of the earth, which supports the anti-bassine movement, opponents intend to go to the site again on Wednesday morning, where the construction of the restraint must resume.
Sunday evening, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, denounced “the eco -racing” of some of the demonstrators and announced the maintenance of “more than 1,000 gendarmes” in the area to prevent “that none Zad does not settle down “. “Ecoterorism is an insult to ecology activists. It is an insult to the victims of terrorism to associate the word terrorism with ecology”, was outraged on Monday On BFM-TV The MP (La France Insoumise) Clémentine Autain, denouncing a “smoke screen” intended to hide the “content of the fight”.
Saturday, several thousand people (4,000 according to the authorities, 7,000 according to the organizers) had gathered in Sainte-Soline to protest. Violent clashes broke out with the 1,500 gendarmes mobilized when activists wanted to enter the site, prohibited from access. Part of them succeeded before being pushed back. 2>
four people tried on Monday
According to the Niort prosecution, four of the six people arrested on Saturday must be tried on Monday in immediate appearance for “participation in a group formed in order to commit violence and damage”. A police custody has been lifted for “medical incompatibility” and a man arrested for refusal to comply will be judged by criminal prescription.
The Sainte-Soline construction site is part of a sixteen water project of water of several hundred thousand cubic meters of water, nicknamed “basins” by opponents, developed by a group of 400 farmers in the aim to reduce their samples for irrigation during the summer, thanks to the pumping of superficial water tables in winter.
In return, the project leaders, supported by the State, were committed to the establishment of agricultural practices turned towards agroecology. Their detractors see it, conversely, a “forward” of the “productivist” agricultural model and an ecological aberration at the time of global warming.