Direction Saïx, even if some will voluntarily forget the umlaut to make jokes. It’s official since this Thursday, this small town in the Tarn, located very close to Castres, will house the base camp of the operation this weekend. ” Leaving the road “. Motorhomes are already converging there, and volunteers are busy setting up the marquee and installing dry toilets. The goal: to protest against the start of the A69 construction site between Toulouse and Castres. A project 52 km, thirty years old. The South Tarnais hope that he will finally “open up” them, the opponents – small mayors, farmers, residents – think that his time has passed and that he has become totally “anachronistic”.
Since the end of January, the motorway concessionaire, the Atosca group, on the strength of obtaining environmental authorizations, has begun preparations for the site and cut the first trees. This realization, after three decades of hesitation, had the gift of tensing the situation. Squirrels ” of Extinction Rebellion perched there to prevent the cuts, the “old” opponents of the collective “La Voie est Libre (LVEL)” multiplied their actions, and the militant campsite of Les Platanes appeared in the plowing of Vendine, a town whose row of bicentenary plane trees is threatened.
“Exit from the road” must be the high point of this mobilization. With the program of concerts, debates, acrobats, a big contest of slogans. And a “racing car”, in soapboxes or carts, the winner of which will ironically win 17 euros, the price of the future round-trip toll between Toulouse and Castres. “There will also be a real in-depth debate with important speeches”, welcomes a member of LVEL, referring to the presence on Saturday of the much listened to climatologist Christophe Cassou or the alter-globalist economist Geneviève Azam. Just before the famous “determined march”, of which not much pierces.
“The sentences” of the Minister of the Interior
The weekend promises to be both studious and festive. But not only. There is also a scent of Sainte-Soline. Firstly because, as in Deux-Sèvres, the Uprisings of the Earth collective is on the list of four co-organizers, alongside LVEL, the Confédération paysanne, and Extinction Rébellion. Then because Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior in person, has clearly increased the pressure.
On April 5, he cited before the National Assembly, the Toulouse-Castres motorway as one of the sites where there are desires to install ZADs and “to organize extremely violent demonstrations against the police “. Not to mention the worrying note from territorial intelligence that leaked from RTL this week and which reports the possible presence of “a hundred radical elements” and a risk of violent clashes. In this climate, many are worried on the various opponent forums about whether they should come with the children.
And this climate has the gift of annoying on the side of LVEL. “We are there because Darmanin made sentences the day after Sainte-Soline”, loose a spokesperson, clearly annoyed by the question. “Since the time, it would be known if we were dangerous eco-terrorists,” he adds. A “constructive dialogue” has even been established with François-Xavier Lauch, the prefect of Tarn. The latter confirms having received “on time, a declaration of demonstration in the name of the Confédération paysanne du Tarn and Attac Tarn” and proposes “to the collective to discuss this event in a common objective of good public order”. Asked about the planned police system, the regional prefecture indicates that “as for each important event”, it “will be proportionate and adapted to the situation”. As LVEL says, “So far so good”, no way out of the way.