the gendarmes disperse demonstrators who came to supply opponents of the project

The gendarmes used tear gas to disperse demonstrators who had come to try to supply opponents of the A69 motorway, who were camping in trees in Saïx (Tarn), noted an AFP photographer on Friday March 1.

Dozens of demonstrators, with a dozen shopping bags containing food, hygiene products and water filtration systems, attempted to advance towards the trees, but were refused access by the gendarmes, according to an AFP correspondent. “We have a duty to give food and drink to people who have been deprived of it for two weeks”, one of these opponents of the Toulouse-Castres motorway project told the police. After some shoving, the gendarmes used tear gas.

An investigation and sanctions requested

On Thursday, the UN special rapporteur on the protection of environmental defenders, Michel Forst, notably asked the French authorities “the authorization without delay and without hindrance of the supply of food and drinking water” of these activists. The rapporteur, who visited Tarn on February 22 and 23, also asked “an investigation and sanctions for the acts of sleep deprivation, burning of materials, lighting of fires and dumping of apparently flammable products by the police, which may have endangered life” of these activists.

The prefect of Tarn, for his part, claimed to have given Michel Forst “all the explanations on the intervention of the police in Saïx”which “formally deny the allegations he reports”, regretting “that he took no account of it”.

Opponents of the A69 urgently seized the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), in order to stop “the methods” French authorities against the demonstrators.