Gérald Darmanin affirmed on Sunday his “will that no ZAD (Zone to defend) settles in Deux-Sèvres as elsewhere in France”, announcing the maintenance on the site of the Sainte-Soline basins of “more than 1,000 constables”.
Believing, in a statement, that the gendarmes mobilized this weekend (from 1,600 to 1,700) had “done their job, to enforce the republican state”, the Minister of the Interior denounced “ecoterrorism” which, in his eyes, was shown by some of the demonstrators – “about forty S files, from the radicalized ultra-left (…) who want disorder and chaos”.
The collective wants to be part of the long term
Gérald Darmanin criticized Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of LFI, for being on the “side of the professionals of disorder”. As it was pointed out to him that elected officials present at the demonstration said they had been “struck”, he did not respond. He recalled on several occasions that this demonstration had been banned by the prefecture of Deux-Sèvres. The prohibition order concerned 12 municipalities around the site.
Gérald Darmanin congratulated “the very mobilized gendarmes who succeeded in preventing the activists from occupying the place near the basins and from building a ZAD”, while the anti-basin collective indicated its intention to register the fight in the long term. . “We did it for Republican order,” he continued, arguing that “much” of the protest had been “extremely violent,” citing “fireworks mortar attacks,” with “blunt objects”, “petanque balls” against the police.
The gendarmes deployed “as much as necessary”
The Minister of the Interior warned that a thousand gendarmes would remain on site “as much as necessary” to prevent the installation of a ZAD. He further added that the government would take “the necessary remedies” against any “construction” that would be contrary “to town planning law”, including on private land. Opponents of these water reservoirs for agricultural irrigation are welcomed on land made available to them by a farmer until May.
“We started to make observations,” he said. Asked about the case of the pipe severed on Sunday by opponents of mega basins and belonging to a farmer, the minister explained that as soon as the farmer had filed a complaint, the gendarmerie would investigate “to find the perpetrators”.