A new major demonstration is planned for this weekend in Sainte-Soline to protest against these alternative water reserves defended by farmers.
Between 15,000 and 30,000 people. This is the number of demonstrators hoped for by the organizers of the new mobilization against the “mega-basins”, scheduled for Friday March 24 to Sunday March 26 in Deux-Sèvres. Despite the ban on this gathering, the collective Bassines non merci, the environmental movement Les Uprisings of the Earth and the Peasant Confederation are aiming for a new show of force, five months after the last protest which led to clashes with the police.
A “base camp” was set up on Friday in a private field in Vanzay, with the agreement of the owner. “The objective is clear: to obtain the suspension of work on new ‘mega-basins’ and the reopening of a local and national dialogue on water”explains to franceinfo Nicolas Girod, spokesman for the Peasant Confederation.
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In the sights of the demonstrators, the project led by the Coop de l’eau 79. This private company, which brings together 450 farmers, wants to build in the department sixteen substitution reservoirs to store water drawn from groundwater in winter, to provide irrigation in the summer.
For their promoters, these reserves are a tool for adapting to global warming. Their detractors see it as water grabbing by conventional agriculture. Supported by the State and by the majority agricultural union FNSEA, this project benefits from significant public funding. A first reservoir is in service in Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon, and another is under construction in Sainte-Soline.
A demonstration banned by the prefecture
It is towards these two municipalities that the demonstrators must converge on Saturday, the highlight of a weekend punctuated by festivities and round tables. “There is always the desire to visualize the object of the fight. We are going to approach the basins and, if we can get into them, we will get into them”, confirms Nicolas Girod. “Law enforcement will be overwhelmed”, promised AFP Julien Le Guet, spokesperson for the Bassines collective, no thank you. In the fall of 2022, the demonstrators had succeeded in investing the basin of Sainte-Soline and pipes had been sabotaged.
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To try to prevent them, the prefecture, which expects between 7,000 and 10,000 demonstrators, has taken very strict measures. The demonstration is prohibited, because “a history of serious disturbances to public order observed during previous demonstrations resulting in violent acts against the police and acts of sabotage on agricultural installations”.
Placed in police custody last week as part of the investigation into the violence that occurred during the October demonstration, Julien Le Guet is prohibited from going to Sainte-Soline and Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon. “Forbidding me to stay because there are basins in a municipality is still a very particular conception of fundamental freedoms and regional planning”he gritted at the microphone of France Bleu Poitou, promising that he would approach “as close as possible to Sainte-Soline”.
“The more they ban, the more violence they lead to”
These measures only fuel tensions, denounces Nicolas Girod. “I told the Minister of Agriculture. The more they ban, the less they give us possibilities to make this struggle visible, the more they will strain the local context and lead to violence”he develops, denouncing a “dialogue with the truncheon of the CRS”. “It’s going to be a monster brothel in Sainte-Soline”fears a ministerial adviser.
The representative of the Confédération paysanne is also counting on the social context, with the movement against pension reform. “These two causes come togetherhe believes. If we have reinforced employees and retirees on a dying planet, we won’t have gained anything at all”.
In the camp opposite, Thierry Boudaud, president of the Coop de l’eau, does not hide his concern. “We call for calm more than ever”he confides to franceinfo, worried about a demonstration “more and more announced as a desire to have a trophy, to make symbols, to degrade a water reservoir”. Messages were sent to farmers to avoid any confrontation with the demonstrators.
The first skirmishes have already taken place. The tarpaulins of a “basin” were lacerated on Wednesday in the town of Gours (Charente), bordering Deux-Sèvres. The same day, in La Laigne (Charente-Maritime), farmers attacked the house of the vice-president of France Nature environment 17, Patrick Picaud. “His property was ransacked, tagged with homophobic slurs and portraits of him were displayed”, denounces the association. A complaint has been filed.