DIRECT. Mobilization against the future Saint-Sauvant basin
This live feed is provided by journalists from the General Information department.
12 h 30. A few dozen people are present on the Saint Sauvant town hall square, including Julien le Guet, spokesperson for the Bassines non merci movement and Benoît Biteau, environmentalist deputy for Charente-Maritime, and members of the Human Rights League ( LDH).
Checks and searches of vehicles were carried out on the roads, reports Nicolas Fortin, national secretary of the Peasant Confederation.
The first activists arrived at the protest site.
© (photo NR Xavier Benoit)
12 h. What to remember before the start of the mobilization.
- The Saint-Sauvant basin, called SEV 14, is the fifth construction project of the Deux-Sèvres water cooperative company (Coop de l'eau).
- The construction site has not started but if this basin sees the light of day, it would contain 292,162 m3 of water taken from the Dogger groundwater which supplies the sources of the Sèvre Niortaise. The site is located in the protection zone for little bustards.
- This Saturday's demonstration is organized by the collective Bassines non merci (BNM) and the agricultural unions Confédération paysanne des Deux-Sèvres et de la Vienne. A declared demonstration which was not banned by the prefecture.
- The meeting is set for 1 p.m. on the Saint-Sauvant town hall square for the start of a “popular and peasant march” at 2 p.m.
- The Vienne prefecture took a series of administrative measures for this event: order prohibiting the wearing and transport of protective equipment; order authorizing the capture and transmission of images using three cameras (two drones and a helicopter).
- Several dozen gendarmes and CRS are deployed throughout the site.
- The departmental roads RD 96 and RD 17 will be closed to traffic from the town of Saint-Sauvant towards the departmental limit of Deux-Sèvres, from 11 a.m. until the end of the event.
