They don’t want to stop there. More than 70 people who participated in the banned demonstration against the “basins”, at the end of March in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres), announced on Tuesday that they had contacted the Defender of Rights, denouncing “serious violence on the part of the gendarmes”.
Targeted in a “disproportionate and indiscriminate” manner by the gendarmes
This collective referral is brought by 42 demonstrators injured during clashes and 30 witnesses, “so that light can be shed” on the action of the police. During an online press conference on Tuesday, demonstrators explained that they had been targeted in a “disproportionate and indiscriminate” manner by gendarmes, whose grenade fire resulted in “serious and numerous injuries” such as “mutilations”, “ fractures” or even “hearing loss”. They also believe that “rescue was unjustifiably hampered, seriously endangering the lives of the most seriously injured”.
On March 25, 6,000 to 8,000 people according to the authorities, 30,000 according to the organizers, demonstrated on the construction site of a “basin”, a disputed water reserve for agricultural use in Poitou. Violent clashes broke out with the gendarmes who protected the site, with more than 5,000 tear gas grenades fired. The organizers reported 200 injuries, including 40 serious injuries, among the demonstrators. And, two of them spent several weeks in a coma.
The Defender of Rights, “legal support” for the future
The authorities defended a targeted and proportionate response to several hundred “radical” demonstrators, denying any obstruction of relief, while the Human Rights League has already questioned the responsibility of the State.
The referral to the Defender of Rights, whose “word (…) could be a legal support for the future”, aims to “put forward the story” of the demonstrators against that of “the institutions”, underlined Tuesday a demonstrator. Another described a “battlefield like the Wild West or a movie,” where “there was no place where you felt safe,” which left her in “shock.” for several weeks. One injured person said he “almost lost his foot” when a grenade exploded, another said he “lost half of his hearing capacity in his right ear”.
Last week, the Niort public prosecutor’s office requested a 6 to 12 month suspended prison sentence for the alleged organizers of the demonstration that the prefecture had banned.