They were there to denounce the climate impact of the concrete sector. Several dozen environmental demonstrators who came with tractors in front of a Lafarge site in Saint-Herblain, near Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), were dispersed by the police at midday on Monday.
After a weekend of similar actions organized throughout France, the activists dressed in white hooded overalls, their faces masked, gathered Monday morning on a roundabout where they were surrounded by a large police force. law enforcement. The inscriptions “attention cement factory” and “reinforced concrete” had been written in red paint on road signs. Some of the ring roads had been closed in the morning.
The gathering was organized in particular by the Earth Uprisingsat the initiative during the weekend, with the Extinction Rebellion and Youth for Climate movements, of several demonstrations on road sites or production sites of construction companies, such as Lafarge (Holcim).
A hundred opponents in Eure
Access to a Lafarge site in Val-de-Reuil (Eure) was thus forced on Sunday in the middle of the day by around a hundred people “hooded and masked”, according to the sub-prefect of Bernay, Philippe Fournier-Montgieux. According to him, the guard of the premises had on this occasion been “sequestered” in a room until the police intervened around ten minutes later. The demonstrators were dispersed using tear gas, said the sub-prefect, who specified that an investigation was open.
The public prosecutor of Evreux, Rémi Coutin, specified that “the estimate of the damage should be known within the week” and that the site could “not operate normally” on Monday. “No one was sequestered during this ten-minute action, watch in hand, which did not target individuals, but an ecocidal industrial sector,” reacted people presenting themselves as participants in the demonstration, in a press release received on Monday.
The production of cement and concrete represents 8% of global CO2 emissions, more than air transport and maritime transport combined, professionals admit.