The historic drought reinforces their opposition: several thousand demonstrators are preparing, Saturday, October 29, to try to thwart the ban of the Deux-Sèvres prefecture and an imposing gendarmerie device to reach the construction site of a reserve of water they count well “reseal”.
“Sainte-Soline is 720,000 cubic meters of water over more than ten hectares, eighteen kilometers of pipes for farmers, not one of whom has given up pesticides. We don’t want it to happen here, we don’t want it to happen anywhere else.”declared Melissa Gingreau, spokesperson for the collective “Basins No Thanks”which brings together environmental associations, trade unions and anti-capitalist groups.
Thousands of demonstrators, most of whom arrived on foot to circumvent traffic restrictions, gathered at noon on Saturday in a field lent by a peasant, studded with barnums and a yellow marquee bearing the inscription “Corn for all, justice nowhere”.
The objective of the organizers? “Succeeding in reaching the basin, removing all the grids that protect the site, filling in the beginning of the hole, preventing the resumption of work”according to a leaflet distributed on the spot before the departure of the processions scheduled for 2 p.m.
The prefect of Deux-Sèvres Emmanuelle Dubée said, on Saturday, to dread “a violent demonstration” and remembered that she was “prohibited”due to the damage and clashes that marred a previous rally in March. “We will not let a protest procession, or groups of individuals, approach the site of the substitution reserve”, she added. About 1,500 gendarmes are mobilized and at least two helicopters criss-cross the area.
The equivalent of 260 Olympic swimming pools to irrigate in the summer
“Today is going to be fine, law enforcement will have no choice but to back down and we will dance in this crater”assures Julien Le Guet, another spokesperson for “Basins No Thanks”.
Surrogate reserves are open craters covered with plastic sheeting and filled by pumping water from surface groundwater in winter. They can store up to 650,000 m3 (i.e. 260 Olympic swimming pools) of water to irrigate in the summer, when rainfall is scarcer.
That of Sainte-Soline is the second of a project of sixteen drawn up by a group of 400 farmers united in the Coop de l’eau, to “reduce withdrawals by 70% in summer”in this region still subject to irrigation restrictions after an extraordinary summer drought.
“It’s October 29, it’s dry everywhere, it’s absurd to monopolize all the water available for a few corn farmers”denounced the MEP Yannick Jadot, present on the spot like other elected environmentalists, including the deputy Sandrine Rousseau.
The Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, said he agreed with the opponents on “the need to collectively reduce (…) our water uses »but stressed on France inter that the “the project had no negative consequences for the groundwater” groundwater, according to a recent report.
A plan signed four years ago
According to this study by the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research, the project could, compared to the period 2000-2011, increase “from 5% to 6%” the flow of rivers in summer, against a 1% drop in winter, without taking into account the potential evaporation of future reserves, nor the threat of recurring droughts linked to global warming.
Christophe Béchu also recalled that the “plan signed by everyone four years ago” after a long consultation between farmers, elected officials, authorities and associations, conditioned access to water to changes in practices (reduction of pesticides, planting of hedges, conversion to agroecology).
But none of the ten farmers using the first reservoir “has not subscribed to a reduction in pesticides”according to Vincent Bretagnolle, member of the scientific and technical committee for monitoring the project, and since the signature, several associations have withdrawn from the protocol.
Denis Mousseau, president of the FNSEA 79 which defends this storage project, reminded Agence France-Presse on Thursday “the great concern” local farmers in the face of this gathering. “We are not fighting against farmers, we are fighting against the tools of agro-industry which makes peasants disappear”declared, for his part, Nicolas Girod, spokesperson for the Confédération paysanne: “In 30 years, the number of peasants has been divided by three. »