2023-08-18 05:30:09
Aerial view of the Sainte-Soline mega-basin (Deux-Sèvres), April 11, 2023. DAMIEN MEYER / AFP
Nearly 700 activists on bicycles announced, accompanied by a dozen tractors… The “water convoy”, which should set off Friday August 18 in the middle of the day from Lezay, a small village in Deux-Sèvres near Sainte- Soline, is already a « victoire » for the organizers. It fits according to them “in the wake of historic and ultimately victorious convoys and marches” Larzac in 1973 and 1978, and the area to be defended at Notre-Dame-des-Landes in 2015.
The vocabulary used in recent days reveals the state of mind of opponents of mega-basin projects in Deux-Sèvres, Vienne and Charente-Maritime, reinforced by a series of favorable decisions. The most important is undoubtedly the suspension – provisional – by the Council of State, on August 11, of the dissolution of the Uprisings of the Earth, organizer of the “water convoy” with the collective Bassines non merci and the Confédération paysanne .
In addition to the setback inflicted on the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, the target of criticism from the anti-basin movement since the clashes in Sainte-Soline on March 25, it has had the effect of strengthening their determination. A month earlier, on July 10, the League for Human Rights (LDH) also issued a concluding report to “an indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force” by the state, accusing it of having “hindered the rescue” brought to injured demonstrators, which the authorities dispute.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers The dissolution of the Uprisings of the Suspended Earth: a major setback for Gérald Darmanin
Ban on demonstrations in Sainte-Soline
More embarrassing for the Deux-Sèvres Water Cooperative, the bearer of the sixteen water reserve projects for agricultural use in the three departments of the former Poitou-Charentes, the Loire-Bretagne basin committee voted the 4 July almost unanimously (only one abstention out of 138 voters) a motion calling for a review of the protocol signed in 2018, with new territorial governance, greater transparency and the assurance of a “true agroecological transition”. Its president, Thierry Burlot, believes that a new construction site for a basin “would only add fuel to the fire”. It remains to be seen whether the Loire-Bretagne Water Agency will follow the recommendations of the basin committee, whose role is advisory.
The content of the report issued on July 12 by the Senate fact-finding mission on water management, chaired by the Republican senator from Cher Rémy Pointereau, is more cautious. If the 53 proposals of the text plead for “shared use of water”, the senators refuse any moratorium on water reservoirs. Yet this is what the anti-basins persist in demanding, making it one of the demands of the “water convoy” bound for Orléans, where a mobilization is planned for August 25 in front of the headquarters of the Loire-Bretagne Water Agency, before a « surprise » final the next day in Paris.
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