Suspended prison sentences of up to six months were confirmed, Wednesday July 1, on appeal against four association and union leaders for the organization of the banned demonstration in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres), punctuated by violent clashes with the gendarmes three years ago.
As in the first instance, the leaders of the environmentalist collectives Uprisings of the Earth and Bassines Non Merci were sentenced to suspended prison sentences of three and six months, while two leaders of the Peasant Confederation, who had stopped calling for the demonstration after its ban, were fined €800.
“We are condemned for our political commitment, because we are spokespersons for our organizations and the justice system does not want to hear the collective functioning,” reacted Julien Le Guet, for whom the decision “in this scorching context, puts a layer on the total incomprehension of our institutions on what is at stake”.
Several opponents injured
On March 25, 2023, thousands of people defied the prefectural ban in this village in Deux-Sèvres to protest against the creation of a vast agricultural water reserve, which they had renamed “megabasin” and presented as a tool for “grabbing a common good” by “agro-industry”.
During clashes between demonstrators and the gendarmes, who fired 5,000 grenades in front of the construction site, several dozen opponents were injured, including two placed in a coma.
In this project of 16 reserves in the Marais Poitevin, which the promoters defend as an “adaptation to climate change”, twelve, three of which are already operational, have not been called into question by the courts, and four, including that of Sainte-Soline, were suspended at the end of 2024 for threatening a protected species, pending an exemption. “We disobeyed so that the law on water could be applied,” added Julien Le Guet, before announcing the appeal of the four men.
