Justice rejects a request from the prefect of Vienne to withdraw subsidies granted to the environmental association Alternatiba

The judges considered that the festival “was not generally intended to incite” civil disobedience.

A setback for the prefecture. Administrative justice rejected, Thursday, November 30, a request from the prefect of Vienne aimed at withdrawing subsidies granted by the city and agglomeration of Poitiers to an environmental association, Alternatiba, on the grounds that it had violated its contract of republican commitment. The two communities had paid 15,000 euros to this association for the organization, in September 2022, of a festival including a workshop devoted to civil disobedience, among other activities and conferences.

At the hearing on November 9, the representative of the prefecture pointed out the participation in this workshop of opponents of “basins”a month and a half before a violent demonstration in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres) on the construction site of one of the disputed agricultural water reservoirs in Poitou.

No general incitement to disobedience

“I, the correlation, I see it”, he said, denouncing “an unambiguous legitimization of the modes of action of radical ecology”. And, thereby, a violation of the republican engagement contract subscribed to by Alternatiba since the 2021 law known as “separatism”like any association requesting public subsidies.

In its judgment rendered Thursday, the administrative court of Poitiers specifies that an association does not violate its contract “only if it has undertaken or incited to undertake actions, not only manifestly contrary to the law, but also violent or likely to lead to serious disturbances of public order”. “Having regard to the content of its program” varied involving agriculture and the environment, the judges considered that the festival “was not generally intended to incite” to such actions, even if it included a workshop dedicated to civil disobedience.