SAINTE SOLINE. Tensions have risen a notch between environmental activists and law enforcement at the site of the mega-basin of Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres), March 25, 2023. The demonstrators continue their fight against the agricultural project, how far will they go?
Eyes once again turned to Sainte-Soline. Five months after previous turbulent protests, environmental activists returned to the edge of the mega-basin construction site in the small village of Deux-Sèvres, on Saturday March 25, 2023, to challenge the agricultural irrigation project. But the demonstration turned into clashes between the 3,000 members of the security forces deployed and the 6,000 people mobilized and counted by the prefecture. These are especially the “1,500 violent activists […] ready to do battle” awaited by the intelligence services and having honored the appointment which took part in the scuffles. The associative collective “Bassines non merci”, the environmental movement of the Uprisings of the Earth and the Peasant Confederation, at the origin of the call to demonstrate, claim the presence of 30,000 people in Sainte-Soline.
To oppose or defend the site of the mega-basin of Sainte-Soline, demonstrators and police exchanged blows and throwing projectiles: firework mortars, Roman candles and molotov cocktails on one side against grenades of tear gas, de-encirclement and LDB fire from the other. Violence responsible for a heavy toll: 200 injured including 40 seriously according to the organizers, while the prefecture counted 7 injured including one in absolute emergency – and life-threatening still engaged on March 27 – in the ranks of the demonstrators for 47 injured including two absolute emergencies with the police.
The strength of the protest goes up a notch
This is not the first demonstration organized in Sainte-Soline but that of March 25 has gone up a notch. The proof with the organization and the objective of the mobilization: there is no longer any question of limiting themselves to protest, the activists wanted to put the mega-basin “out of harm’s way” according to the expression of the coalition of earth uprising unions. The objects and weapons seized by the police ahead of the demonstration also reflect the radical intentions of certain activists: knives and other bladed weapons, petanque balls, cans of gasoline or gas canisters.
“The nature of the projectiles that were found and the nature of the techniques used by some of the individuals testify to the fact that they had not come to demonstrate peacefully, but truly to lead a logic of guerrilla warfare”, analyzed Céline Berthon, Central Director of Public Security on BFM TV. On the same stage, Thierry Vincent, journalist and author of the book “In the head of the black blocks: truths and received ideas”, confirmed: “When there are molotov cocktails in demonstration, it is really the signal that the movement hardens, it is a sign of radicalism”.
Violence stirred up by the police?
It was the now justified fear of seeing the movement harden that prompted the prefecture of Deux-Sèvres to ban the demonstration. 3,200 police and gendarmes were mobilized, on foot, in quads or even in helicopters for the same reason and to protect the site from possible acts of vandalism. Protection of the Sainte-Soline mega-basin has already been reinforced by the addition of two 2-meter-high fences around the entire perimeter of the site and by the limited access thanks to roadblocks. But wouldn’t this excess of measures have contributed to the exacerbation of anger? “By prohibiting any demonstration, inevitably, we blow on the embers. […] The state prevents people from gathering peacefully!”, warned Nicolas Girod, national spokesperson for the Confédération paysanne, on European 1.
If the hostility of some activists has been proven, the radicalization of the movement among some demonstrators could have been induced by the military response according to Marine Tondelier, national secretary of Europe-Ecologie-Les Verts. During the demonstrations of March 25 in Sainte-Soline, “4,000 de-encirclement grenades” were used by the police according to the confessions of the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin. The presence and the interventions of the police were “disproportionate, and it is certain that it brings in people who are more there for the gendarmes, the police and the CRS than for the basins. Without all this pressure and this intimidation on the part of the Ministry of the Interior, it would go very well!”, Added the ecologist in remarks reported by Marianne.
Future mobilizations and a ZAD in Sainte-Soline?
After the demonstration of October 2022 and that of March 2023, new mobilizations near the mega-basin of Sainte-Soline are possible. The month of March will not a priori be that of the government’s retreat “on the water grabbing front” as the Earth Uprisings coalition would like in a call for mobilizationdocument in which one can read: “We will obviously remain mobilized and will propose other appointments if that were not enough. GO!”
To renew the mobilizations, the most invested activists could settle in a camp near the mega-basin. The scene was seen on the evening of Friday March 24 when “several hundred demonstrators converged on a camp established a few kilometers from Sainte-Soline, on private land” according to European 1. Already in October, the demonstrators had remained on the spot for several days in a makeshift camp, close to the decried construction site. From there to become a ZAD? The Minister of the Interior fiercely opposes it. “There will be no ZAD in Sainte-Soline” he assured, explaining to maintain the police force “as much as necessary”. A speech already held in the fall when Julien Le Guet, the spokesperson for those who call themselves the “anti-basins” declared to The Obs that the Sainte-Soline site “will be our base for the next actions against the site if it were to restart. The elected ecologist Sandrine Rousseau anticipated for her part: Sainte-Soline “will become a ZAD”