IIt was pitch black on October 18, when Daniel Jarrige, president of the Saint-Junien environment association, in Haute-Vienne, heard the roar of agricultural machinery in front of his home. Barely out, he discovers a tractor and a skip dumping tires, branches and earth in front of his gate. Above the mound, the yellow flag of Rural Coordination, the second largest French agricultural union. “I expected retaliation. But not directly to my home »he testifies, still stunned.
For the activist, there is not a shadow of a doubt: this act, also orchestrated the same evening in front of the home of the treasurer of his association, is a « vengeance »while the trial of a former executive of the department's Rural Coordination (CR87) was taking place earlier in the day. The latter was on trial for having released wild animals, including a coypu, into a cinema, in January 2023 in Limoges, to disrupt the broadcast of a film on the impact of megabasins in the Poitevin marsh.
The operation was claimed by the union on social networks with this sentence: “The ecological terrorists want biodiversity, the CR87 has delivered it to them. » “Leaving the court, we were given a guard of honor with threats like: “we will find you”, “we know where you are”, “we will take care of you””relate Daniel Jarrige.
Insults sprayed on the walls
Aggressive messages towards members of the local federations of France Nature Environnement (FNE), a group of 9,000 environmental defense associations (including that of Daniel Jarrige), are increasing. In 2023, FNE recorded more than 50 attacks against him, attacks on property and threats perpetrated between 2015 and 2023 throughout France.
Since 2022, It just is! listed eighteen targeted actions against FNE member associations, half of which were linked to recent agricultural demonstrations. Some are perpetrated directly at the homes of FNE representatives, such as in Charente-Maritime, where the property of the vice-president of Nature environment 17 was ransacked and homophobic insults sprayed on its walls.
Other intimidations took place on the sidelines of events aimed at raising public awareness of environmental issues. As in Guéret, in Creuse, when FNE23 organized a public meeting on pesticides on October 26. In response, the Rural Coordination claims to have tagged the town hall: “FNE leave us alone”, “FNE we don’t forget Saint-Soline”, “The only true ecologists in France are the farmers”.
“Since we allowed the agricultural world to vandalize everywhere, we feel a form of impunity risingobserves Cécile Argentin, spokesperson for FNE Occitanie-Midi-Pyrénées. And with the professional elections of the chambers of agriculture, we have the impression that it is who will carry out the biggest communication operation. »
“A kind of impunity”
Since January 15 and until January 31, farmers are called to vote for their representatives in the departmental chambers of agriculture, currently dominated by the National Federation of Agricultural Operators (FNSEA). The second union in the country with 21.54% of the votes, the Rural Coordination now holds the majority in three departmental chambers.
On October 7, 2024, for the fourth time in four years, the FNE Occitanie-Midi-Pyrennées branch, located in Toulouse, was vandalized. This time, the attack is claimed on social networks by the Gers Rural Coordination. “Just as our lakes, our reservoirs, our irrigation quotas, are attacked by extremists who are anti-scrologists, we went to the center of Toulouse, to say stop to those who are destroying agriculture”wrote the organization.
“There is a form of radicalization which is taking hold even in territories which were previously spared”observes Cécile Argentin. This increase in violence is a direct consequence, she believes, of the criminalization of environmental activists orchestrated by recent successive governments.
-“The use of the term ecoterrorist at the highest level of the State has done a lot of harm”believes Michel Galliot, president of FNE Limousin, about the speech by the former Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, to justify police repression, in Saint-Soline, March 25, 2023. “The word circulates a lot, including among local elected officials, and justifies resorting to violence against us”deplores the community activist.
Premises vandalized three times in less than a year
In Tarn-et-Garonne, in Montauban, FNE premises have been damaged three times in less than a year. The gate and surveillance cameras were each time damaged for a total amount of around 60,000 euros. However, believes its president, Gaëtan Deltour, relations with the FDSEA union, which does not officially claim these actions, are good. “Of course, we rarely agree, but we manage to communicate. We even signed a common charter on the creation of small water reservoirs”supports the head of the France nature environment section.
Same stupor and incomprehension in Indre. The Indre Nature association, bringing together seventeen employees and 900 members, suffered, on November 26, on the sidelines of the agricultural demonstration in Châteauroux, what it describes as an attack on the part of the FSDEA36. “Straw was dumped in front of our premises while six employees were sealed inside, shutters closed. The farmers drummed on the windows with no reaction from the police”describes Jacques Lucbert, president of Indre Nature.
“Death to the ecologists”
If dumping waste in front of FNE premises is not a new practice, the violence of the slogans which accompany these actions worries activists. Last November, Michel Galliot, president of FNE Limousin, alerted the Limoges public prosecutor. “The threats and actions against our employees, members and supporters are becoming a reality”he wrote. Citing the case of the “death to ecologists” banner displayed during a village festival in Corrèze. Or the press release from the president of the Haute-Vienne Chamber of Agriculture, from August 2023, inviting land and forest owners to remove environmental associations from their property “by all means”.
“These open threats can dissuade residents who witness an offense or pollution from testifying”regrets Michel Galliot. Indeed, the message from the Haute-Vienne Chamber of Agriculture refers to the volunteers who support the FNE “Sentinels of Nature” program. This participatory card allows you to report pollution or, conversely, initiatives favorable to the environment. “These invectives worry us for our employees who are commissioned by the State to carry out naturalist inventories in the field”continues Michel Galliot.
Almost all attacks are the subject of a complaint. “The idea is to show that we will not be intimidated and that we will continue our work”explains a lawyer from the association. FNE deplores that these complaints are “systematically dismissed, sometimes without investigations. Even though the people and agricultural unions sponsoring these facts, feeling so above the law, sign them, publish and claim their crimes on social networks.. The environmental association denounces the State's double standards. “When we see the police repression at work during the demonstrations of environmental movements, we say to ourselves that two different logics are at work”accuses Gaëtan Deltour.
Why France nature environment?
Is it because it does not hesitate to file a complaint or file appeals against prefectural decrees that FNE is thus attacked? In August 2024, it obtained a reduction in irrigation quotas in the Adour sub-basin. The summary judge of the Pau court (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) considered the prefectural decree in force illegal, because it authorized “an unbalanced situation where volumes [d’eau, ndlr] taken are greater than the drawable volumes”. The decision angered irrigators.
However, in reality, environmental defense associations work a lot with farmers. Whether within local administrative commissions, sort of mini-parliaments supervised by the prefectures around themes such as water, hunting, landscapes, or in programs for the preservation of protected species. “In our territory, we have implemented agro-environmental measures which, for ten years, have brought in one million euros per year to farmers”cites Jacques Lucbert as an example, in Indre.
FNE is even often at the farmers' bedside. “Some even come to us directly for help”testifies Gaëtan Deltour, giving the example of a member of the FDSEA who reported illegal water pumping for the construction site of a housing estate, during a period of drought. In Bouches-du-Rhône, a producer, whose organic certification is threatened by the spreading of glyphosate near his land, found help from FNE-Paca which filed a complaint for non-compliance with the non-treatment zones in the Crau plain.
“We are in reality the easy target when our role is to ensure the application of environmental law”admits Cécile Argentin. “We find ourselves in a situation where going to court, with the current narrative, is a pain in the assregrets Morgane Piederrière, advocacy officer at FNE. However, in a democracy, going to court is a healthy and legal way to manage a conflict. »