June 21, 2023, 5:14 PM
June 21, 2023, 5:14 PM
‘Soulèvements de la terre’, which could be translated in Spanish as ‘Land uprisings’ was disbanded this Wednesdays in the Council of Ministers. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin had announced his intention to ban this organization after the violent clashes between gendarmes and opponents to the construction of reservoirs to irrigate agricultural fields in Saint-Soline, in western France, in March of this year.
The environmental movement denounced “a very political dissolution and particularly worrying demanded directly from the Head of State by agribusiness and the FNSEA (agricultural union)”.
“Trying to silence ‘Soulèvements de la terre’ is a vain attempt to break the thermometer instead of worrying about the temperature,” deplored the SLT, which was born in January 2021 in the former ZAD (zone to defend) of Notre-Dame- des-Landes, an airport project that was ultimately abandoned by the opposition from environmental movements.
The government accuses them of “violent actions and insurrection” during the Saint-Soline demonstrations. The movement had opposed the so-called “substitution reserves”, some large-scale dams, fed by water from groundwater tables. The objective is to allow farmers to irrigate their fields during periods of drought, but for these ecologists it is an “aberration” for the planet.
On Saturday, March 25, there were Serious clashes between protesters and police around the controversial water reservoir under construction in Sainte-Soline, thousands of people came despite the fact that the concentration had been prohibited. There were 28 gendarmes and 200 demonstrators injured. Seven people had to be hospitalized, three of them critically.
“Neither the mass arrests nor the threat of administrative dissolution will dissuade the more than 100,000 people who today identify with this movement from continuing their action in favor of the very possibility of a future on Earth, carrying out actions to occupy land, blockade and disarm the toxic infrastructures that, today for today, they are in the process of completely laying waste to the world,” Basile Dutertre, an activist with the collective Les Soulèvements de la Terre, told RFI.
The movement has received support from left-wing personalities, activists and intellectuals. It is a “political decision” that “is part of a broader movement to criminalize environmentalists,” denounced the leader of the environmentalists, Marine Tondelier.
