The authorities expect up to 10,000 demonstrators this Saturday, including a thousand “ultras”, in Sainte-Soline, in Deux-Sèvres.
Weekend under tension in Deux-Sèvres. Cars by the dozen cross the country roads, to go to the base camp, a field loaned by a farmer, outside the zone prohibited by the prefecture. More than 3,000 police forces mobilized on one side, 1,500 “violent activists“expected from the other: the new demonstration against the “mega-basins”, symbol of the tensions around access to water, is placed under high security on Saturday March 25, in Deux-Sèvres. Up to 10,000 people are expected around Sainte-Soline, where one of these reservoirs dedicated to agricultural irrigation is under construction, five months after a previous rally marred by clashes.The construction site, briefly invaded by demonstrators at the end of October, is protected by a double row of fence two meters high, and its access defended by roadblocks.
>> LIVE. “Mega-basins”: a demonstration is placed under high security in Deux-Sèvres
Only a few kilometers from the Sainte-Soline basin project, David, a farmer looks at this procession with bitterness: “It still happens. You see it there, in front of you. Unfortunately, we let them go. I’m going to tell you: we don’t irrigate for fun! The primary goal is to save our cultures. So, after what happens, we demonstrate… After a while, if it continues like this for another year or two, I stop the irrigation, that’s for sure and certain“, he sighs.
David does not hide his fatigue, after the tensions around these basins. Friday, March 24, in the evening, he saw the smoke bombs a few hundred meters from his house. Radical opponents forced a fence to invest a railway line. Gendarmes – by the dozens – pushed them back.
“We are going to take our responsibilities to demonstrate, even if we are in a prohibited zone”
“I don’t know if they’re really there because I think that in France, at the moment, things are happening a bit every night, ironically Julien Le Guet, spokesperson for the collective “Bassines Non Merci”. Darmanin will have to arbitrate. Does he want to save the Élysée or save a crater?“Placed under judicial supervision on Friday, he can no longer go to Sainte-Soline or Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon, the two meeting points for the weekend.Fortunately, there are not yet basin projects in all the municipalities. So I’ll show up and go all out“, he launches.
>> “The police will be overwhelmed”: in Deux-Sèvres, the demonstrators against the “mega-basins” want to put the pressure back on
The prefect of Deux-Sèvres, Emmanuelle Dubé, has banned gatherings, demonstrations and traffic in a large area for fear of overflows. But what does it matter, for Nicolas Giraud, spokesperson for the Confédération paysanne. “Because at some point, the right to demonstrate is constitutional. We cannot accept that, upstream of a request for a demonstration, the prefect takes all possible orders to prevent us from going therehe complains. The subject of water, with the accumulating droughts, is something that cannot be forgotten. We must ensure that this subject continues to be above the media and political pile. So yes, we will take our responsibilities to demonstrate, even if we are in a forbidden zone.“
The participants, this weekend, risk a fourth class fine of up to 750 euros and it is ten times more for the organizers, who also incur up to six months in prison.
