Opponents of the A69 are preparing to climb trees again on the route of this controversial motorway to try to block the construction site in Verfeil, in Haute-Garonne, where these “squirrels” hold their last bastion.
“There are no more trees on the route, apart from in Verfeil,” Martial Gerlinger, director of Atosca, the A69 concessionaire, told AFP on Friday.
A last opponent camping in a tree in Saïx, in the Tarn, had to leave at the beginning of the week, after a new intervention by the police, and the last Tarn Zone to Defend (ZAD) on the route was therefore razed.
On the Verfeil site, some 25 km from Toulouse, around fifteen ZADists are having lunch around a table or are busy preparing what comes next.
Three young men, some of them wearing balaclavas, are nailing wooden planks together to make a hut that will remain on the ground.
Three others, hammer in hand, make a smaller one, intended to be pulled up using pulleys to the top of one of the large trees to be felled.
“We are determined” to hold on, underlines another ZAD activist in his thirties who also wishes to remain anonymous.
– Arson attempts –
Similar huts have already been installed at the top of some of the large trees on this 8,000 m2 plot of land, which has around twenty and surrounds a house where Alexandra, 44, lives, who also does not wish to give her name.
This tenant of the former owner – “who sold me with the house”, she regrets – would have liked to “hold on” as the work progresses, which, for the moment, has stopped dead a few metres from her land.
But she finally agreed to reach a rehousing agreement with Atosca and plans to leave the premises on Monday, leaving only the “squirrels” behind: “After two fires, water and power cuts, I said ‘no, it’s fine’. I have a four-year-old. He’s not old enough to die.”
The Toulouse public prosecutor’s office opened two investigations into “damage caused by fire” on this land on August 26 and September 1.
That day, an AFP journalist noted, traces of fire were visible on the seat of Alexandra’s car, parked in the garden near the house, as well as at the entrance to the land, where the mailbox had burned.
The Castres public prosecutor’s office is also conducting an investigation into “damage by fire” and “group violence” in another opposition camp, located in Tarn, but not on the A69 route.
– “More normal operation” –
For its part, Atosca has filed complaints more than 150 times for damage to the site, which extends over dozens of kilometres and involves 1,200 people and 300 earthmoving machines “who work every day”, according to the concessionaire.
“We still have some occasional damage (…) and there were also some stones thrown at our staff a few days ago,” said Mr. Gerlinger, while hoping that “now that the pages are turning, we can return to a more normal way of operating.”
In addition to the PS president of the Occitanie region, Carole Delga, many elected officials from Tarn are in favour of the A69.
On the other hand, environmental groups and movements denounce the destruction of wetlands, agricultural land, trees, ecosystems and water tables, and stress that the current national road is far from being saturated.
Atosca, which estimates the area deforested to build the motorway at 13 hectares, highlights in particular the 71 hectares of “forest area compensation” planned, including replantings along the route.
For several months, the construction of this 53 km section of motorway, which would reduce the Castres-Toulouse journey by around twenty minutes, has been the subject of lively protests with large gatherings where opponents clash with the police.
As of Monday, a new standoff could begin between Atosca, supported by the police, and the ZADists.
dmc/elr/cbn
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