2023-08-26 19:02:00
After failing to obtain a moratorium on basins, these controversial water reservoirs for agricultural irrigation, the “water convoy” gathered more than a thousand people on Saturday in calm in Paris, the activists promising new actions to come.
On the Champs de Mars, cyclists, sympathizers and representatives of environmental associations gathered for a picnic before leaving in a procession through the streets of Paris, under strong police guard.
“Grid by grid, tarp by tarp, we will destroy all the basins”, sang the demonstrators who arrived at the beginning of the afternoon from Orléans, where they had been established since Thursday in front of the headquarters of the Loire Water Agency. -Brittany.
A delegation had been received the day before, for more than five hours, by Sophie Brocas, the prefect of the Centre-Val de Loire region and basin coordinator, to unsuccessfully demand a moratorium on current basin projects, before occupy the premises of the Water Agency.
The dialogue notably failed on the site of Priaires (Deux-Sèvres), where grids were installed, signaling, according to the delegation, the imminent start of the work.
“We have tried another path, that of appeasement, of a resumption of dialogue. But we cannot dialogue if the government continues to build new basins,” said the spokesperson during a press briefing. of the Earth Uprising movement, Benoît Feuillu.
“We are very upset because we did not obtain the moratorium we had come for. We will have to continue the actions to dismantle the sites”, he added, greeted by applause from the demonstrators.
“Actions destabilisantes”
He did not give dates for these actions but specified that “the next meeting would take place in Niort on September 8, for the trial of nine representatives” of environmental and trade union movements “accused of organizing prohibited demonstrations” .
“A big support rally will be organised. And we won’t be far from Priaires…”, he added.
“These new actions will be very destabilizing. We will thwart the devices”, launched for his part Julien Le Guet, the leader of Bassine no thank you.
“We will soon go to the Water Agency. We will go to Priaires, we will remove the barriers and we will make them miserable”, intoned, accompanied by an orchestra facing the Eiffel Tower, the members of the procession, including several hundred cyclists, before setting off for a parade through the streets of Paris.
After a few detours due to the blocking of several streets by the police, the demonstrators, including many retirees and women, walked along the sunny quays of the capital to the joyous sound of trombones and saxophones under the astonished gaze and questions of passers-by. .
Demonstrators briefly unfurled a banner on a tourist bus, surprised but amused by the scene. Their vehicle quietly turned around.
Police vans channeled the flow of demonstrators while car traffic ended up being somewhat disrupted. But the demonstration retained a good-natured spirit and the cyclists arrived late afternoon without incident in Montreuil, east of Paris, for a “festive evening” as part of an environmental festival, said to AFP one of the representatives of the movement.
The mega-basins aim to store water in the open air drawn from the surface aquifers in winter, in order to irrigate crops in summer when rainfall is scarce.
Their supporters make it a condition for the survival of farms in the face of the threat of recurring droughts linked to climate change. Opponents denounce them, a “grabbing” of water by “agro-industry”.
26/08/2023 19:02:51 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
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