Thousands of protesters marched against the construction of infrastructure for water storage in the municipality of Sainte-Soline, in west-central France. Opponents denounce that these ponds leave a resource as essential as water in the hands of agribusiness, while their promoters assure that they are essential to combat drought in the summer.
6,000 people, according to the authorities, and 25,000, according to the organisers, were present this Saturday in Sainte-Soline to vindicate their rejection of the construction of mega-water basins that the French government is helping to build in the area.
The authorities deployed nearly 3,000 police officers in a major operation after clashes between police and protesters occurred in previous marches against the warehouses. According to the authorities, a thousand of those present were “radical” activists who had even come from neighbouring countries such as Italy, Switzerland, and Germany.
On this occasion, there were also clashes. Although the protest was mostly peaceful, some protesters hurled explosives and projectiles, while police fired tear gas and water cannons. Although the number of injuries is not yet known, the AFP reported that there were “calls to doctors.”
According to the gendarmerie, before starting the demonstration, the agents seized knives, slingshots, incendiary products, and axes, among others, and 11 people were arrested, of whom seven remain in police custody.
The organisers of the demonstration are environmental groups: Bassines non merci (no to water reserves), the ecological movement of land revolts (Mouvement écologiste des Soulèvements de la Terre), and the farmers’ confederation (Confédération paysanne).
The call of these organisations had been to protest peacefully. A spokesman for “Bassines non merci”, Julien Le Guet, had called for the peaceful demonstration. “Don’t fall into violence; the real violence is that of the state,”, he maintained.
Against “the monopoly of water”
The demonstrators reject the construction of this type of infrastructure financed by the state (70% for this project), which benefits local agricultural industries. They claim that projects of this type concentrate essential resources such as water in the hands of a few and are not designed to benefit the entire country.”
The goal is to get closer and surround the basin to stop the construction site,” a member of the Earth Uprisings collective told AFP at the start of the demonstration. These “substitute reservoirs” have become the symbol of a fight against “the monopoly of water by agribusiness,” said the protester, according to AFP.
Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres department) is one of 16 mega-basins that are part of a project developed by a group of 400 farmers. They assure us that if they did not have these water resources, they would not be able to survive in the summer with the intense droughts.
For their part, NGOs such as Greenpeace have also recently spoken out against this type of project. The organisation denounces that these ponds are fed by groundwater, thus weakening the underground layers and aquifers and affecting the survival of ecosystems.
In addition, it points out that they verify state policies in favour of agribusiness, which for the organisation is “a devastating model” of food production that generates a great impact on the environment and is also “partly responsible for climate change.”
The demonstrations in Sainte-Soline take place at a time of maximum tension against the government of Emmanuel Macron due to its controversial approval of the pension reform. The massive protests against him caused the postponement of King Carlos III’s visit to the country on Friday.
In addition, the Council of Europe, the continent’s main human rights watchdog, and several NGOs have denounced the police brutality with which the authorities have responded to the demonstrations against the president’s proposal in recent days.
With AFP and local media
