More than a thousand environmental activists will demonstrate on Saturday April 22 in the Tarn against the construction of the A69 motorway which will link Castres to Toulouse within two years, which they describe as an environmental disaster.
After the violence in Sainte-Soline, during a demonstration on March 25 against the establishment of mega-basins, several hundred environmental activists planned to gather on Saturday April 22 in Saix, in the Gard, to protest against the motorway construction site of the A69. The Ministry of the Interior warns of the arrival of a hundred dangerous individuals.
The opponents that franceinfo met on the spot do not believe in this scenario. Cecile, for example. Below a road, near the three tents of the camp of historical opponents, she washes the dishes using a large container of water. She wants to show that her involvement is above all a citizen: “I am a resident, bordering the future highway. Neither a zadiste, nor an eco-terrorist!” The arrival of a “hundreds of violent individuals”as Gérald Darmanin assures him, does not worry him: “I’m going to demonstrate with my son, I have no fear on that side. I heard the minister talk about the ‘eco-terrorists’ of the Earth Uprisings, and I met them here. I don’t I don’t believe it. They are young or old, who are completely citizens.”
For these activists, the minister tries to demonize them. First with the term“eco-terrorist” pronounced after the first mobilization of Sainte-Soline, then with this alert on the demonstration of this weekend in the Tarn. “By dint of saying that we are terrorists, there is the possibility that a large number of families will not come to our parties”, regrets Annick, from the local branch of the Attac association.
“It’s not good to prevent people from Tarn to meet and say ‘No, we don’t want a useless, unjust, ecocidal, climaticidal and illegal motorway’.”
Annick, from the Attac associationat franceinfo
Justice has however approved the project despite numerous appeals, allowing the site to begin after decades of debate. But these activists do not intend to stop there, and what happened in Sainte-Soline allows them to bring more visibility on the national level to their mobilization today. Régis would like to avoid caricature: “We are a ‘red zone’! A zone of dangerous eco-terrorists, among the most dangerous zones in France! But here there are tents, coffee, buns, fruit juices… For years weeks it’s going very well, we did concerts…”
The weekend is intended to be festive, in a department still marked by the death of the young opponent of the Sivens dam Rémi Fraisse, eight years ago.
