In France, 60 gendarmes were injured, 22 of them seriously, on Saturday October 29 in Sainte-Soline in the Deux-Sèvres, during clashes between the police and environmental and anti-capitalist activists. The latter demonstrate against a water reserve project and accuse farmers of privatizing water, while France is still facing drought.
Hand in hand and feet in a dry land, the environmental activists are heading towards the site of the agricultural basin, these open water reservoirs filled thanks to the pumping of surface water tables in winter. They can store up to 650,000 m3 (i.e. 260 Olympic swimming pools) of water and allow farmers to irrigate in the summer.
Marie-Jeanne may be in her sixties, she did not hesitate to face the gendarmes, as she explains at the microphone of Baptiste Coulon, special envoy of the France service of RFI. ” to a policeman who wanted to prevent me from crossing the road when I was in front of him – he told me, get out of the way, Madam, step back – I told him that I condemned him, with a big smile, to die of thirsty, because they are just as much victims of these water issues as we are! It is not normal that the police put so many means to dissuade people who want to testify! “.
Intensive agriculture denounced
The 1,600 gendarmes and the 6 helicopters deployed did not impress Camille, 19, much more concerned about her future. ” We kill the thing that allows us to survive, it’s me who I’m going to have to come to terms with the end of my life on earth, maybe without water, maybe with less water, and I want the sharing of resources to be fair. And above all, I want to have the choice to have children, and I want my children to have the choice to have grandchildren. That is to say, I don’t want to restrict myself to desires for parenthood or just desires to build a family because the resources are no longer sufficient for us. “.
The Sainte-Soline water reserve is the second of a project of 16 basin projects developed by a group of 400 farmers in this department in central France. The latter affirm that they would make it possible to ” reduce water withdrawals by 70% in summer on groundwater. Opponents accuse these farmers of monopolizing water resources, and more generally criticize the model of intensive agriculture. The water in the basins is thus widely used for the irrigation of corn intended for the feeding of livestock in intensive farming.
MEP Yannick Jadot, former candidate of the Greens in the last presidential election, came on Saturday to support the demonstrators.
Yannick Jadot: “There is a lack of water, it cannot be monopolized by a few farmers for irrigated corn!”
► Read also: France still affected by drought
(And with AFP)