Despite the presence on site, including in trees, of opponents of the A69, around sixty trees were cut down in a few hours on Sunday 1is September on the route of this controversial motorway, according to the Tarn prefecture. “The vast majority have been cut down: 59 trees. About ten still remain.” to be cut down, the prefecture specified at the beginning of the afternoon, adding that“There are four people still perched”.
The clearing of the construction site for the future Toulouse-Castres motorway began around midnight, “under the protection of law enforcement”according to the same source. “The gendarmes were the target of mortar fire and projectiles thrown from catapults”more “no harm to property or people is to be deplored”she continues in a press release.
In total, seventeen arrests have taken place since Friday, when opponents of the motorway project were evicted from a camp near the construction site in Saïx. However, several of them remained perched in trees, in the hope of preventing them from being cut down. The activists had built tree houses in advance so that they could retreat to them in the event of police intervention, a journalist from Agence France-Presse (AFP) noted.
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Investigation into damage by fire and group violence
On Sunday, early afternoon, the felling continued on the grounds of the former camp, under the gaze of about twenty opponents. About fifty kilometers further, in Verfeil, in Haute-Garonne, anti-A69 activists occupying another area on the route of the future motorway claimed to have been victims of a second attempted arson during the night from Saturday to Sunday.
Traces of fire were visible on the seat of a car, as well as at the entrance to the land, where the mailbox had burned, according to an AFP journalist. Following a complaint from these occupants, who reported similar acts on the night of August 25 to 26, the Toulouse prosecutor’s office opened an investigation for damage to property by fire.
The Castres prosecutor’s office is also conducting an investigation into damage by fire and violence in a group at an opponents’ camp in mid-August in the Tarn. In recent months, various acts of damage have also occurred on the site, including fires of construction equipment, without however delaying the work, according to the motorway concessionaire Atosca.
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