The associations opposed to the construction project of the A69 linking Toulouse to Castres have filed an appeal on the merits. A previous appeal on the felling of trees on the route of the infrastructure had been rejected in March.
10 associations, including Attac, Friends of the Earth, France nature environment in particular, filed this Monday, June 19 a first appeal, before the administrative court of Toulouse, on the merits of the construction project of the A69, the motorway which must connect Toulouse and Castres, according to information from France Inter. A first summary appeal before the Council of State, relating to the felling of tree lines on the route of the future motorway, was rejected last March.
Opponents contest this project which will artificialize, according to them, more than 300 hectares of agricultural or natural land. For Atosca, the motorway concessionaire, only 110 hectares out of the 300 are affected by the asphalt pavement, the rest corresponds to the land area, embankments, merlons and shoulders in particular.*
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Alice Terrasse, the lawyer for the associations, denounces in particular the imperative reason of major public interest defended by the State and the concessionaire: “the opening up of the Castres Mazamet basin“. The lawyer claims that “the Castres Mazamet basin is not a landlocked living area“. On the contrary, it denounces the fact that the route of the motorway “harms hundreds of protected species, some of which are on the verge of extinction“.”If this imperative reason fails, the project falls with“, assures Alice Terrasse.
“Remedies are far from exhausted”
Thomas Digard, from the collective of opponents La Voie est libre, hopes, with this legal action, to convince the State to stop the preparatory work. According to him, “there is still time to suspend“works. He points”deficiencies” And “approximations” of the file presented during the public inquiry.
According to the lawyer, it will take several years for the court to examine the case on the merits. But for Alice Terrace, “the remedies are far from exhausted“. If the work really begins, especially in the protected areas, this recourse to the merits will make it possible to file interim measures to stop it. “This is the real beginning of the fight that will not stop until the project is definitively abandoned.“, hopes the lawyer.
For its part, Atosca, the concessionaire of the motorway, indicates to France Inter that it is ready to defend its commitments in favor of the environment before the court.
The office of the Minister of Transport reminds him that he is reviewing all motorway projects through the prism of new environmental criteria.
“This project will progress but we can also make a number of adjustments, improvements, adaptations“, estimated at the end of March Clément Beaune, the Minister of Transport.