The organizers of the mobilization against the irrigation basin project announce an action on Sunday “in a spectacular, relevant and remarkable mode”.
Le Monde with AFP
The day after the rally in Saint-Soline, organized against a megabassine project intended for agricultural irrigation and ended up violent clashes between demonstrators and police, mobilization continues, Sunday, October 30, in Deux-Sèvres.
New actions of “civil disobedience” are expected at 2 p.m. Concerts were also scheduled at the end of the afternoon on the site where the opponents settled in the “octopus”, nickname given to the water reserve and its network of pipes.
“This morning, it’s calm, but there are around 2,000 people on the site, I remind you that the demonstration remains prohibited, therefore that any act aimed at trying to enter the reserve site will be again Once again dismissed, “said on Franceinfo The prefect of the department, Emmanuelle Dubée.
“We will continue to act”
“Yesterday, it was the big action. Today, we will continue to act, perhaps in a softer mode but nevertheless spectacular, relevant and remarkable,” confirmed Sunday morning on BFM-TV Julien Le Guet, spokesperson for the collective “Bassines no thank you!”. On the social network Telegram, a chain continues to inform on the control points by the gendarmes identified near the area.
“The objective remains that this project stops and does not go to the end, has developed the organizer. So we will carry out a surprise action at 2 p.m., which will physically impact, irreparable and pacifist, The octopus of Saint-Soline. The octopus will have undergone an assault this afternoon. “
💬 “We will take a surprise action at 2 pm”
Julien Le Guet, the spokesperson for the collective “Bassines no thanks!… Https://t.co/cm20vsqSyw
The day before, the clashes between demonstrators and the police would have made dozens of wounded, on both sides. “Sixty -one gendarmes were injured, including 22 seriously,” tweeted the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, for whom “this figure shows that it was not a peaceful demonstration but a very violent gathering”.
“I hope all the republican political forces will condemn these violence,” added the minister, who, according to his entourage, returned to Paris in the evening “to follow since Beauvau the evolution of the situation in Sainte- Soline “.
Six arrests and 1,500 gendarmes mobilized
Side demonstrators, Julien Le Guet reported “50 injured real”, having himself been touched on the head, questioning the balance sheet established by Gérald Darmanin. L schools grenades have been launched and elected officials carrying their tricolor scarf, molested, in particular the environmental member of Vienna, Lisa Belluco, according to a photographer from the France-Presse agency.
The prefect Emmanuelle Dubée also reported, Saturday evening, 6 arrests after this rally having brought together 4,000 people, according to her; 10,000, according to organizations. M dubée denounced the presence of “400 black profiles and very violent blocks”, as well as “molotov cocktail jets, mortar fire, powerful explosives, projectiles”.
With a surface to be covered with several hectares through cereal fields, the 1,500 gendarmes mobilized had trouble containing the crowd, in which hundreds of masked or hooded activists rubbed shoulders with families and many retirees.
Holy Sarine is the second basin of a project of sixteen substitution reserves drawn up by a group of 400 farmers gathered in the Coop de l’Eau, to “lower the samples in summer by 70 %”, in this region Still subject to irrigation restrictions after an extraordinary summer drought.
These reserves are open -air craters, covered with a plastic tarpaulin and filled thanks to the pumping of the water from the superficial water tables in winter. Elies can store up to 650,000 cubic meters of water (or 260 Olympic swimming pools) to irrigate summer.