“The most violent individuals are the police,” defends an anti-basin protester, sentenced to 12 months in prison

Julien Le Guet, spokesperson for the citizen collective Bassines non merci, has already announced that he will appeal and regrets that Gérald Darmanin does not yet have to answer for the orders given to the police.

“I am already announcing that I will appeal the decision”, said Wednesday January 17 on franceinfo Julien Le Guet, spokesperson for the citizen collective Bassines non merci. The activist, as well as two members of the Uprisings of the Earth, were sentenced on Wednesday to suspended prison sentences of 6 to 12 months, for demonstrating against the mega-basins project in Sainte-Soline in the spring of 2023, despite the prefectural bans.

franceinfo: You are sentenced to 12 month suspended prison sentence, the heaviest sentence among the convictions. How did you receive this judgment ?

Julien Le Guet: Unfortunately, we expected it. These were exactly the requisitions of the prosecutor, who, on this issue, is clearly the voice of the Macron government. We hoped that Judge Duraffour understood to what extent these basins were a non-adaptation, that they endangered biodiversity, the peasantry on our territories, and the water cycle. He didn’t understand the meaning of the story. His judgment contradicts the decisions of administrative courts given in recent months and which prove us right. Judge Durrafour is not a hydrologist, he has not heard the very in-depth and argued testimony of researchers like Julie Trottier or Jean-Louis Couture. Today there is a scientific consensus which denounces bedpans.

Do you understand the farmers who see in these basins a means of survival for their crop?

These farmers essentially cultivate corn, which is a tropical crop, which we try to maintain here because it is highly profitable, but does not in any way nourish our territories. This corn crop is used to feed stabled livestock in the form of silage or in the form of grain for battery chicken. It’s not agriculture that we want.

The judge also rules on the ban on demonstrations that day. It was the law that applied

When we launch calls for demonstrations, we cannot predict that the prefectures will ban them. It has unfortunately become a habit here: we trample our fundamental freedoms to express ourselves, to move around our territories. It’s scandalous. The Minister of Justice Éric Dupond-Moretti, who strangely slipped through the cracks, spoke of the little music of civil disobedience. We feel here a big fanfare aimed at depriving us of our means of action, aimed at depriving part of the population who are rebelling against these basin projects. This is why I am already announcing that I will appeal the decision.

“It is inconceivable that this judgment by Mr. Duraffour sets a precedent.”

Julien Le Guet, spokesperson for the citizen collective Bassines non merci

at franceinfo

This judgment must go down in history as the testimony of a judge who did not understand what was happening today in our territories, that we are facing a threat of five degrees of global warming in the fifty years that are coming.

Do you regret that the individuals who were the most violent at the time, the black blocs, are not before the courts?

The most violent individuals were the police who used 5,000 bombs on peaceful processions, on children, grandpas, grandmas, who were demonstrating peacefully. I regret that to this day, Gérald Darmanin, who gave orders in this direction, has not yet had to answer for these facts.