The Minister for Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion was the guest of “8:30 a.m. franceinfo”, Saturday March 25, 2023.
Christophe Bechu, Minister for Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion, was the guest of the 8:30 a.m. france infoSaturday March 25, 2023. Basins in the Deux-Sèvres, water plan, pensions, police officers from the Brav-M … He answered questions from Lorrain Sénéchal and Neila Latrous.
Bassines: “The message is not to mingle with people” who have come “to break the cop”
A new demonstration against basins in Deux-Sèvres is planned for Saturday. 7,000 to 10,000 demonstrators are expected. “We fear a form of reissue” of what happened in October 2022 where “ultra-left thugs attacked the police, throwing petanque balls”, explained Christophe Béchu. SATURDAY, “there are several sites” of opposition. “A festive site, with an authorized framework, but there are places where you shouldn’t mingle with people who don’t come to contest the projects, but to break the cop, to question the system. is more than 1,000 thugs expected.”
Christophe Béchu insisted. “We cannot, under the cover of anything, transform a moment of demonstration or opposition, which has its place in democracy, into a moment of outburst of violence.”
Water and drought plan: “It is completed and it will be presented next week”
The government’s water plan to fight drought “is closed and will be presented next week”assured Christophe Béchu. “There are no other collective trajectories than going towards sobriety and being careful”. The project as it stands is not that of the government, but that of 450 farmers in cooperatives. This project has been validated by the BRGM (Bureau of Geological and Mining Research). “We consume 149 liters of drinking water per day and per person. In all of this, there is water that we might not use and water that might not be drinkable. We are going to move on the authorization to use the water from his washing machine to go to the toilet, which is prohibited as we speak.”
The basins are water reservoirs filled in winter by drawing from groundwater, in order to draw less water in summer. But the tablecloths were not filled this winter. “We have to get used to living with less water, that’s what the IPCC report says”insisted Christophe Béchu. “The basin is not the solution to climate change, this is not how we are going to get by everywhere in France.” The bedpans are also not “a project to fill the jacuzzi of farmers, it is a project made to ensure agricultural production, to feed us”.
In Sainte-Soline, in Deux-Sèvres, “The level of the groundwater will determine whether or not the authorization to take. This is provided for in the project. If the groundwater is not filled, there will be no authorization to fill the basin”.
Violence committed by members of the Brav-M: “They have no place in the Republic and in democracy”
The police officers of the Motorized Violent Action Repression Brigade (Brav-M) perpetrators of violence “have no place in the Republic and in democracy”said Christophe Béchu, after the broadcast of an audio recording of about twenty minutes in which we hear several Brav-M police officers threatening and intimidating a group of individuals arrested and placed in police custody on Monday evening in Paris, during a demonstration against the pension reform.
The Paris police chief, Laurent Nuñez, seized the IGPN. “We know very well that this inspection will lead to a report and that this will lead to questioning, I hope so.” But Christophe Béchu does not want “that we have a standard which consists of focusing on excesses, unacceptable behavior on the part of police officers and that we forget that nearly 500 were injured” Thursday during the demonstrations. “We have to be careful not to reduce everything to slippages which are unacceptable, but which are a minority.”
Pensions: “No one can say that this reform takes the French by surprise”
“No one can say that this reform takes the French by surprise”said Christophe Béchu. “It was at the heart of Emmanuel Macron’s commitment from 2017, it was repeated in 2022. In the Republican arc, many candidates had insisted, before the election, on the need to make this reform. “
The minister insisted that France “cannot be the only country in Europe where we live longer, but where we do not work longer. This reform has been carried out in the countries around us, sometimes with more political consensus. “ For weeks, demonstrations have been increasing in France against the project. “This reform causes tensions like each of the pension reforms that has had in the past. Each time, we ended up with disputes that lasted and which ended, over time, withering away.”
The Constitutional Council must decide on this reform. “It must be left to work with the utmost independence, which it always is. Certainly this decision is awaited because it is the next step or the last step before promulgation.”
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