(Saïx) Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg came to France on Saturday to support opponents of a motorway project, during a mobilization which was intended to be festive, but which was overshadowed by clashes between demonstrators and security forces. ‘order.
“We are here in solidarity with those who resist this project and this madness,” declared the global muse of the fight against global warming, arriving in the rain in Saïx, a few kilometers west of Castres ( south of France), with a delegation of French and international activists coming in particular from Belgium, Sweden and Spain.
“This must stop,” she added, speaking in English, before saying in French: “Stop A69!” », in reference to a motorway which will link Toulouse to Castres. She indicated that she would be in the Bordeaux region on Sunday to support opponents of an oil exploitation project.
Greta Thunberg came to Saïx to participate in a “cabanade”, a weekend of workshops, round tables and concerts organized in a hangar on private land.
” To block ”
At the same time, about 300 to 400 meters away, around fifty police officers faced for hours activists occupying a “ZAD” (zone to be defended) made up in particular of cabins built in trees on the route of the future highway, to try to prevent the construction site from continuing.
The police, confined on a road, made massive use of tear gas, but were unable to penetrate the ZAD, located on private land beyond a field and a road. railway and railway.
The activists took refuge there, then came out, throwing tear gas bombs back at the police and other projectiles using tennis rackets, according to an AFP photographer.
“A hundred individuals are blocking the railway between Toulouse and Castres and they have put obstacles on it. The individuals had set up three barricades and set one on fire, the gendarmes managed to reopen the municipal road which had been blocked,” local authorities indicated in a message.
Greta Thunberg and the other members of the delegations remained in the hangar to listen to speeches and interact with the activists.
“I grew up in Toulouse. When there are ecological protests in France, I go there. We need to put a barrier in place, we don’t have time to wait for our generation to take charge,” explained Amine Messal, a 25-year-old Frenchman who defines himself as an “international activist” and a member of the association La Voix est Libre, which convinced Greta Thunberg and other representatives to come and support the Tarn activists.
In recent months, the protest movement seemed to be running out of steam, while “45% of the budget” for the project has been committed and “95% of the deforestation” carried out, according to the company Atosca, the highway concessionaire.
The presence of Greta Thunberg “allows the fight against the A69 to be fully registered at the international and national level and urges political leaders to take stock of their stubbornness”, one of the organizing collectives, No Macadam, underlined on Friday.
The French government is determined to complete this section of motorway “to completion”, which would reduce the Castres-Toulouse journey by around twenty minutes and must be put into service in 2025. “Dear Greta Thunberg […] the A69 motorway meets a vital need for Tarn and its inhabitants,” declared the president of the Tarn departmental council, Christophe Ramond, on Friday.
Greta Thunberg, who gained worldwide notoriety with her “school climate strikes” that began at the age of 15 in Sweden, regularly takes part in such protests.
In October, it received a fine for blocking the port of Malmö in Sweden. She won her trial last week in London, where she was on trial for disturbing public order during a demonstration against the hydrocarbon industry in October.