several thousand people demonstrate in Puy-de-Dôme

Several thousand opponents demonstrated against the construction of two water reserves, one of 14 hectares, the other of 18 hectares, intended to irrigate 800 hectares in the Limagne plain.

“We have to take a backseat.” More than 5,000 activists, according to the organizers, 2,000 according to the gendarmerie, take part on Saturday May 11 in a major “educational, festive and artistic hike” departing from Vertaizon, in Puy-de-Dôme against a project of “two largest megabasins in France”. The two water reserves, one of 14 hectares, the other of 18 hectares, are intended to irrigate 800 hectares in the Limagne plain, where Limagrain, the world’s fourth largest seed company, is located.

Mostly dressed in blue to “symbolize water” at the request of the organizers – including Extinction Rebellion and the Earth Uprisings – the demonstrators found themselves in a good-natured atmosphere, with two tractors taken by the Confédération paysanne and banners: “wetlands everywhere, basins nowhere” , “no to large, useless and imposed projects”.

No formal request for authorization yet

The crowd must materialize in space the outline of one of the two planned reservoirs, aiming according to the collective to “privatize more than 2.3 million m3 of water for 36 farms, most of them linked to Limagrain”. “These gigabassins will be filled directly by pumping” in Allier, “an area classified Natura 2000 which locally supports the drinking water supply of more than 200 000 inhabitants“, denounces the Bassines non merci collective, organizer of the event, in a press release. “We must stop plundering our water resources, we must prioritize subsistence agriculture”, declared the national secretary of environmentalists Marine Tondelier Saturday morning on franceinfo. According to the agricultural cooperative, the reservoirs would be filled by sampling in Allier between November 1 and March 31, respecting the authorized flow rate of 45.7 m3/second.

These megabasin projects, carried out by the Association Syndicale Libre des Turleuros – which brings together 36 farmers, including the president of the Limagrain cooperative – have not yet been the subject of a formal request for authorization, but its opponents wish to obtain a moratorium. Activists accuse Limagrain of pushing “unofficially” the project for “secure its seed corn production intended for export”.