Five days after the violent clashes between “anti-basins” demonstrators and the police in Sainte-Soline in Deux-Sèvres, the controversy persists. While two demonstrators are still in a coma, the emergency response time is at the heart of the questions, as is the organization of the maintenance of order defended by the authorities. “L’Obs” takes stock.
• An “anti-basin” demonstration that turns into a confrontation
Several thousand demonstrators met in Sainte-Soline on Saturday March 25 to protest against a “basin” project, a reservoir dedicated to agricultural irrigation, a symbol of tensions around access to water.
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The prefecture had banned the demonstration, organized by the collective of associations “Bassines non merci”, the environmental movement of the Uprisings of the Earth and the Peasant Confederation. 3,200 police forces had been mobilized, while the prefecture feared the presence of“around 1,500 radical activists”.
According to the authorities, 6,000 demonstrators gathered, where the organizers mentioned on their side 30,000 people.
Tear gas, quads and Molotov cocktails… In Sainte-Soline, the anti-basins clash with the police
But if part of the procession remained calm and festive, another turned into a violent confrontation, transforming the place into a scene of war at midday, with loud detonations and vehicles on fire. For about an hour, the police and a hundred demonstrators exchanged fire from mortars and Molotov cocktails on one side, and tear gas and disencirclement grenades with the use of LBDs on the other. A total of 4,000 grenades were fired by the security forces, according to the Minister of the Interior
• Multiple injuries
The prosecution reported 47 injured gendarmes and seven demonstrators rescued on the spot. The organizers for their part mentioned 200 demonstrators injured in total, including at least 40 seriously, with one person having “lost an eye”.
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Above all, at the end of the weekend, two people were between life and death. The vital prognosis of one of them, a 32-year-old Toulouse man suffering from a head injury, was still engaged on Wednesday and he was still in a coma. According to the organizers, this man “would have received a GM2L grenade at the level of the head”.
The vital prognosis of the other demonstrator, hit in the trachea, was no longer engaged on Tuesday but he was still in a coma.
Who are Les Uprisings of the Earth, the movement that Darmanin wants to dissolve?
The Niort prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into the circumstances in which a total of three demonstrators were seriously injured. The Niort public prosecutor’s office indicated that it was unable “determine the origin of the injury” of the first demonstrator before divesting itself in favor of that of Rennes because of its military competence. Other inquiries have been opened into the facts, in particular to “Organization of Prohibited Demonstration”, “violence against soldiers” et “destruction of property”.
• The maintenance of order in question
From the end of the weekend, the question of the organization of the maintenance of order during this demonstration was the subject of a controversy. The national secretary of EELV Marine Tondelier, present in the procession, most of which remained peaceful, had notably denounced to AFP the shooting of grenades towards injured people and the intervention of quads, “a kind of BRAV-M of the fields”.
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The League for Human Rights (LDH) has denounced “an immoderate and indiscriminate use of force on all those present”evoking in particular LBD 40 shots from moving quads.
The gendarmes assured for their part that they had done “a proportionate use of force, using massive tear gas”disencirclement grenades, as well as LBD shots “in times of great tension”.
At Sainte-Soline, chronicle of an announced war
But Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin had to admit on Monday that orders had no “not fully respected”. He notably mentioned two launchers of LBD on quad, specifying that the gendarmes concerned had been suspended. The IGGN has opened an administrative investigation.
The Insoumis deputies have asked for a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the choices for maintaining order in Sainte-Soline – they have however already used their unique drawing right, which would de facto allow such a commission to be launched, and wish that the Assembly takes up the subject.
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For his part, Gérald Darmanin announced on Tuesday that he had initiated the procedure for dissolving the group “Uprisings of the earth”, which he held responsible for the clashes on Saturday in Sainte-Soline.
• Emotion around the emergency response
The controversy began at the end of the rally, and it continues to swell. On Saturday, many demonstrators were moved by the time taken to intervene by the emergency services, as reported by our reporters on the spot, in particular in the case of the demonstrator seriously injured in the head, with whom two doctors from the gendarmerie had to intervene in the face of the absence of the ambulance at first.
Sainte-Soline: an Samu operator claims to have been ordered not to send help
A recorded call, with content made public on Wednesday by the organizers, is at the heart of the controversy. It involves a doctor and a lawyer from the LDH who, from a neighboring village, were in contact with people in contact with the injured, including Serge. “We are not authorized to send help (…) because it is considered to be dangerous”responds the Samu to the lawyer during this exchange, attributing the decision to the “on-site command”.
But if since Saturday, the authorities have justified the delay in the intervention of the emergency services by the need for the gendarmes to ensure their safety, the absence of a strong voice has continued to fuel the controversy.
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• The authorities deny any obstruction to relief
After the publication of the call with the Samu, the prefect of Deux-Sèvres finally answered Tuesday in a press release that “it was only (…) to prevent the Samu or firefighters from being attacked or collateral victims of violent clashes that this instruction could be passed, in a context where violent groups moved very quickly. »
Wednesday in the Senate, it was the Minister of the Interior who reiterated: “No, the rescue was not prevented by the police”said Gérald Darmanin.
For a ceasefire, in Sainte-Soline and elsewhere
This Thursday, the director general of the national gendarmerie Christian Rodriguez again denied any desire to prevent relief from intervening, judging the accusation “amazing”. “To consider that the gendarmes are going to oppose relief is even more than indecent”he said again. “A doctor from the gendarmerie intervened with his nurse precisely on one of the two victims. They were stoned”he said.
But the controversy could still last: faced with the justifications of the authorities, the LDH has already replied that the area where the injured was “totally calm for several tens of minutes” at the time of the phone conversation – how you hear a doctor say it in the recorded call.
The families of the two seriously injured demonstrators have, for their part, announced that they have filed a complaint against X, for “attempted murder” in particular and “obstructing rescue”.
