More than 3,000 police forces mobilized on one side, 1,500 “violent activists” expected on the other: the new demonstration against the “basins”, symbol of the tensions around access to water, is placed under high security on Saturday 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 site, briefly invaded by demonstrators at the end of October, is protected by a double row of fence two meters high, and its accesses defended by roadblocks.
The prefecture again banned the demonstration, organized by the collective “Bassines non merci”, the environmental movement of the Uprisings of the Earth and the Peasant Confederation.
“There is a very large mobilization of the far left and of those who want to attack the gendarmes and perhaps kill the gendarmes and kill the institutions”, declared Gérald Darmanin on Cnews.
According to the prefect of Deux-Sèvres, Emmanuelle Dubée, “about 1,500 radical activists”, from France and abroad, could mingle with the demonstrators, who remained mostly peaceful in the fall.
Hundreds of them have already carried out “actions” on Friday afternoon, according to her, attacking two gendarmerie roadblocks and managing to briefly enter a TGV track. A simple “diversion” to allow the convoy of tractors to bypass the police device, according to the demonstrators.
Weapons were seized ahead of the rally – petanque balls, slingshots, slingshots, incendiary products, knives, axes, detailed the regional commander of the gendarmerie, Samuel Dubuis.
The precise location of the event was still unclear, the organizers targeting the “basin” of Sainte-Soline “and / or” the one that already works in Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon.
– Observers –
They are part of a set of 16 reservoirs, with a total capacity of around six million cubic meters, which are to be built as part of a project carried out since 2018 by a cooperative of 450 farmers, and supported by l ‘State.
It aims to store water drawn from surface water tables in winter, in order to irrigate crops in summer when rainfall is scarce. Its supporters make it a condition for the survival of farms in the face of the threat of recurring droughts.
Opponents denounce a “grabbing” of water by “agro-industry” at the time of climate change, and demand a moratorium on their constructions to launch “a real territorial project” on the “sharing some water”.
“While the country is rising up to defend pensions, we will simultaneously stand up to defend water”, launched the organizers on Friday, after setting up a camp a few kilometers from the site, on private land located outside the perimeter. prohibition.
Dozens of tractors and “thousands” of demonstrators, according to organizers, arrived on Friday, some in vehicles with concealed license plates and many groups hooded and dressed in black, AFP journalists noted.
Tense for a long time in the region, the situation has worsened in recent days, despite calls for calm, with the sabotage of an agricultural water reservoir in Charente and the ransacking of the house of an environmental activist in Charente-Maritime by farmers.
Elected officials from EELV and LFI have planned to demonstrate on Saturday, as well as independent observers of police practices mandated by the League for Human Rights to “document the maintenance of order” during the weekend.