Between Tuesday and next Sunday, at least 10,000 people are expected by organizers at the “Water Village” in Melle (Deux-Sèvres), a few kilometers from Sainte-Soline, where violent clashes will take place in March 2023. He confronted some demonstrators and the police.
Around 200 elected officials from various political parties, including the deputy ecologist for Deux-Sèvres, Delphine Bato, gathered in Melle late in the day on Friday to express their “concern” at the “supposed and clear intention”. “Civil disobedience actions.
Agricultural unions were divided
On July 19 and 20, the organizers, including the Bassines Non Merci collective, the Rebels of the Earth, Attac and the Solidaires union, planned to “occupy, blockade or disarm” the installations with the aim of “lifting the moratorium”. construction of “mega-basins”. For Coralie Dénoues, DVD president of the Deux-Sèvres department, the incident “carries the seeds of the violence we experienced last year”.
Earlier in the day, the Deux-Sèvres prefecture “reminded” the organizers of the Water Village and the planned industrial activities of their obligations “given the high risks they present”, stressing that it is “currently taking administrative measures”. measures to support gendarmerie actions.” Agricultural Unions demonstrated their differences on the eve of the event.
One of the organizers, the Peasants’ Confederation, calls on public authorities to “finally work towards a dialogue” on water sharing, rather than “playing as pyromaniac firemen or birds of prey”.
The Lot-et-Garonne Rural Coordination, for its part, condemns “fundamentalist environmentalists” and calls on farmers to “support and defend our rural friends” in Deux-Sèvres, “farmers (…)” the police.”