Here we go again. The second act of the trial of the nine organizers of the demonstrations against the “basins” in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres), which was interrupted at the beginning of September due to the length of the debates, opens Tuesday before the Niort criminal court.
On September 8, the court suspended the hearing after eight hours of debate in an overheated and non-air-conditioned room. It will continue Tuesday morning with the hearing of witnesses, before the prosecution’s requisitions and the pleadings of the six defense lawyers during a day which promises to be just as marathon.
Six months in prison incurred
Justice accuses nine spokespersons of the “Basines no thanks” movement (BNM)of the ecological collective of the Earth Uprisings, the Peasant Confederation, the CGT and Solidaires 79, for having organized the banned demonstration of March 25 which gave rise to violent clashes with the police.
Added to this, among other grievances for some, is the organization of another banned gathering on the same site, on October 29, 2022, against the creation of 16 water reserves in the region and the theft of a valve. pipeline for watering cereals, in Épannes (Deux-Sèvres), March 23, 2022.
Eight of the nine defendants had asserted their right to silence, after opening statements during which they presented themselves, some of them, as “whistleblowers” of a “water war which has already started”. They face six months of imprisonment, in addition to additional penalties which may include deprivation of civil rights.
As during the first hearing, the defendants’ supporters called for a rally from 8 a.m. in front of the court. Round tables, screenings and theatrical broadcasts are also planned throughout the day in the center of Niort, the Deux-Sèvres prefecture having once again banned all demonstrations around the court.
Sixteen water reservoirs intended for agricultural irrigation, nicknamed “basins” by their opponents, are planned in the Marais Poitevin, including that of Sainte-Soline. They aim to store water drawn from groundwater in winter, in order to irrigate crops in summer when precipitation becomes scarce.
Crop insurance or water grabbing?
Their supporters use it as crop insurance essential to their survival in the face of repeated droughts; opponents denounce a “grabbing” of water by agro-industry and call for a moratorium. And highlight the cancellation by administrative justice at the beginning of October of two projects relating to the creation of 15 water reservoirs in Poitou-Charentes, for their unsuitability to the effects of climate change.
After initial violence in October 2022 in Sainte-Soline, the March demonstration quickly degenerated into clashes with the gendarmes, leaving many injured. Two demonstrators spent several weeks in a coma. In a report, the Human Rights League denounced a “disproportionate use” of weapons (tear gas grenades, LBD) by the police.
The parliamentary commission of inquiry into the violence, created after the incidents against the pension reform and in Sainte-Soline, concluded that the “overwhelming responsibility of the three organizers” who are the Uprisings of the Earth, Bassines non Merci and the Confederation peasant.
The organizers of the demonstration thought of themselves above all “as ‘soldiers’ of a cause fully integrating the stakes and the necessity of violent radicalism”, write the deputies in their report of November 14.