No mechanical shovels in the already formed crater, but gendarmes posted all around, on embankments, behind overturned fences, traces still visible of the passage of demonstrators, Saturday, October 29. The construction site of the water reserve with a capacity of 628,000 m3 for agricultural irrigation in Sainte-Soline, in Deux-Sèvres, did not resume, four days after the mobilization which turned into a confrontation.
However, the site remains under close surveillance, both by the police and by opponents, who have built, a few hundred meters away, in the open field, a watchtower surrounded by wooden palisades covered tags, some of which are hostile to the environmentalist MEP Yannick Jadot, whose car was vandalized on Saturday. A precarious construction, which evokes a Gallic village. But no ZAD (zone to defend), so feared by the prefect of Deux-Sèvres, Emmanuelle Dubée, still occupies the premises.
Representatives of the collective Bassines non merci, the Uprisings of the Earth and the “150 components” which support the movement returned to the surroundings of the construction site, Wednesday, November 2, to set a « ultimatum » to the State: the immediate cessation of work at Sainte-Soline, the suspension of the project to create sixteen reserves in the basins of the Sèvre Niortaise and the Mignon (Deux-Sèvres, Charente-Maritime and Vienne) and “the taking of a national moratorium on the storage of water [à usage agricole] in France “.
“Changing Practices”
“Do you realize that the revolution we are proposing is to feed herbivores with grass”, says with a smile the MEP environmentalist and farmer in Charente-Maritime, Benoît Biteau, opposing the project of the Coop de l’eau 79, which promotes the construction of the sixteen reserves. Benoît Jaunet, breeder in Deux-Sèvres and spokesperson for the Confédération paysanne 79, does not understand “that we put as much public money, as many police forces too, to defend a project which concerns only 5% of the farmers of Deux-Sèvres” – figures discussed by the Coop de l’eau 79. And the breeder to ask for help from the Minister of Agriculture to “changing practices”.
“In Poitou-Charentes, we have 200 basins in the boxes, which represent 400 million euros of public money”annoys Benoît Biteau, for whom this sum could accompany a “agroecological bifurcation, which would serve all farmers”. The MEP recalls that the water reserve projects are currently the subject of three appeals, two to the administrative court of Poitiers, one to the Court of Appeal of Bordeaux.
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