For Coop de l'eau 79, one of the priorities for 2025 will be to obtain exemptions as quickly as possible which will allow it to retroactively validate the Sainte-Soline reserve and to consider launching work on those of Messé, Mougon and Saint-Sauvant. These reserves, in fact, were declared illegal by the courts: they should have been subject to a “protected species” exemption since the little bustard, an endangered species, is present in these areas.
It is also by invoking the bustard that ten associative structures for the defense of nature and the environment filed a criminal complaint on January 3, 2024 “for destruction of 17 ha of protected habitat due to the work carried out for the Sainte-Soline megabasin in the absence of a protected species exemption. Asked a few days ago about the follow-up he intended to give to this complaint, the Niort prosecutor Julien Wattebled indicated to to NO that he had forwarded the file to the regional environment center in La Rochelle. We therefore forwarded the question to the La Rochelle prosecutor; At the time of writing, Arnaud Laraize has not responded.
Opponents in court
On the opposition side, the start of the year will be spent in the courthouses. Thursday January 9, the La Rochelle criminal court will deliver its deliberations in the trial of two anti-basin activists arrested on July 20 during the demonstration organized in La Rochelle which gave rise to clashes with the police and the damage to two businesses . During the hearing on November 28, 2024, the prosecution requested four months of suspended prison sentence for one, three months for the other, a three-year ban on residence in La Rochelle and demonstrations on public roads for both.
During the anti-basin demonstration in La Rochelle, July 20, 2024.
© Photo Mathieu Herduin
Monday January 13, in La Roche-sur-Yon, two activists will appear in court, suspected of having damaged the connection valves of a basin.
Friday January 17, in Paris, reading of the deliberations against Léna Lazare and Basile Dutertre, of the Uprisings of the Earth, prosecuted for having refused to appear before the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the events in Sainte-Soline.
Friday February 7, at the Niort judicial court, trial of Julien le Guet, spokesperson for Bassines non merci, prosecuted after a complaint for defamation of Colonel Vestieu, boss of the Deux-Sèvres gendarmes (the officer has since joined the command of the Ministry of the Interior), after a tag carried on the road, in front of the gendarmerie.
Julien Le Guet will be tried for defamation against Colonel Vestieu, here in front of him before the Niort court on September 8, 2023.
© Photo NR
Monday, February 10, trial of an activist suspected of having struck a gendarme during a general fight that occurred on Wednesday, December 18, 2024 between a group of opponents and farmers a few meters from the Sainte-Soline reserve.
A report announced in the first quarter
We should also read the report by the President of Deux-Sèvres Coralie Dénoues on the storage of surface water, which was commissioned by the Assembly of the Departments of France. She was supposed to hand in her copy in the fall; the report is now announced for this first quarter.
