They have not given up on climbing trees but are also playing the courtroom card. THE opponents To the A69 motorway between Castres and Toulouse announced on Tuesday that they had filed an appeal “on the merits” with the administrative court of Toulouse the day before. A request “thick, dense and far from being fanciful (…) a work of ten years which shows all the uselessness of the project and is based essentially on the opinions of experts”, underlines Alice Terrasse, the lawyer mandated by a ten associations, national or local, for the defense of the environment. Formally, the dispute relates to the environmental authorizations issued to authorize the start of the work.
The idea is to bring together all the “extremely unfavorable” opinions issued over the years by “independent bodies”. Since National Council for the Protection of Nature “who notably denounced the total absence of research for an alternative solution”, passing through the environmental authority which judged the project, 30 years old, “totally obsolete”, to the General Commission for Investment which harbored strong doubts about its “economic development” dimension. Advice that is often difficult, that must be unearthed, and that has not been followed. But on which the opponents intend to base their arguments. To denounce more simply, for example, an “exorbitant” toll – 17 euros round trip or even around 200 euros per month for subscribers. And above all to express their certainty that this infrastructure, which runs along the current national road, will benefit the regional capital much more than the Tarnais and will be “the least frequented in France” with a traffic of 6,500 vehicles per day at its opening and barely 10,400, according to estimates by the Atosca concessionaire, by 2044.
Several years of procedure
Opponents are under no illusions. Their appeal, even if they are convinced that it is “very strong” legally, could take “2 to 3 years” to succeed. Not enough to stop diggers already on site. But Alice Terrasse appeals “to reason”. “We are asking the ministries to consult our request and immediately stop work on a highway which we have every reason to believe will not work,” she said. The examples are not legion, but the deviation of Beynac in Dordogne was stopped by administrative justice just like the deviation of Châtenois (Bas-Rhin) last May. With, in hollow, the question of the compensation of the concessionaire by the taxpayers, if the A69 took the same path.
A dealer not really scared
This request for a moratorium does not seem to bother the dealer. He recalls this Tuesday “that this project has previously been declared of public utility by a decree of July 19, 2018, recently confirmed by the Council of State”. “While the work on the A69 has already begun, and in view of the commitments made in favor of the environment in the context of its file, Atosca will provide all the explanations and details useful to the administrative judge”, adds Atosca in a statement.
Opponents will not wait for a possible judgment on the merits to continue their legal guerrilla warfare. They will attack, they announce, each movement of gear via an emergency procedure of “suspension referral”. And on Saturday, they will go to see where the vegetable gardens are that they planted in Saïx, near Castres, during the big demonstration “Exit from the road” on April 22.