The violent clashes that occurred during the mobilization against the mega-basin of Sainte-Soline, in Deux-Sèvres, on Saturday March 25, continue to arouse controversy and questions. The law enforcement system concentrates criticism in particular, while the police have, among other things, used more than five thousand tear gas canisters. For their part, the authorities defend themselves from any disproportionate response, justifying their interventions by “an unprecedented surge of violence” from certain “radical” demonstrators.
Call for rallies, ongoing investigations, dissolution of one of the associations organizing the demonstration, The Uprisings of the Earth… an overview of the political repercussions and citizen mobilizations after the March 25 demonstration.
The three associations organizing the Sainte-Soline demonstration (Les Bassines non merci, Les Uprisings of the Earth and the Peasant Confederation) called for rallies in front of all the prefectures of France, Thursday, March 30, at 7 p.m. The mobilization is organized “in support of the two demonstrators in a coma, the injured in Sainte-Soline, the movement against pension reform and for the end of police violence”, wrote the associations in a joint text. Gatherings are planned, among other things, in Niort, where the Deux-Sèvres prefecture is located, in Paris, Lyon and Nantes.
Several investigations are underway to determine the circumstances in which two protesters were seriously injured and are in a coma. The first, a 30-year-old man hit by a GM2L grenade (tear gas and deafening), according to his relatives, was still between life and death on Wednesday; the vital prognosis of the second is no longer engaged. The families of the two protesters filed a complaint for “attempted murder” and “obstructing rescue”.
The Renne public prosecutor’s office specializing in military affairs is in charge of the two investigations. Mobile gendarmes – therefore soldiers – could be implicated. The investigations were entrusted to the General Inspectorate of the National Gendarmerie (IGGN). Among other things, they will have to establish the materiality and the precise sequence of events as well as the origin of the injuries (projectile, grenade, etc.).
In addition, two gendarmes who used their defense ball launcher (LBD) from a quad (a prohibited action) were suspended, according to the gendarmerie. The IGGN has opened an administrative investigation for these facts. Monday, during a press conference, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, had first denounced a “fake news”, before finally recognizing the veracity of this information on the set of “C à vous”, one hour later.
The possibility for the SAMU to access the most seriously injured, in particular the two people between life and death, arouses a lively controversy. A team from the League for Human Rights present on the spot has had direct confirmation that the police have prohibited relief from intervening. On Tuesday, March 28, Le Monde became aware of a seven-minute telephone conversation during which the medical regulator of the SAMU declared: “We do not have the authorization to send help on the spot, because it is considered dangerous. »
In response, the environmental collective Les Uprisings of the Earth, as well as deputies, in particular from La France insoumise (LFI), called for the resignation of Gérald Darmanin. Questioned on RTL, Wednesday 29, the Minister of the Interior affirmed that the relief workers “have never been prevented from intervening on the site”. They “came as soon as they could”, he defended himself, believing that the conditions were not met for help to intervene.
The prefect of Deux-Sèvres, Emmanuelle Dubée, adopted a similar line on Tuesday evening. In a long press release, she indicated that “the fundamental principle of rescue intervention in a hostile context is to guarantee first and foremost the safety of firefighters or SAMU personnel. To do this, it is up to the police, informed in real time of the situation, to define whether or not the arrival of an emergency vehicle at a certain point is possible in a safe way for him. The prefect also added: “It is therefore not surprising that, if these security conditions were not met, the police were able, for certain geolocations and in certain periods of time, to indicate that an ambulance dispatch was not immediately possible. »
During current affairs questions to the government on Tuesday, the Minister of the Interior announced that he was initiating the procedure for dissolving the Les Uprisings of the Earth movement, which he held responsible for the clashes in Sainte-Soline. Gérald Darmanin insisted on “the extreme violence of small groups on file by the intelligence services sometimes for very many years, such as the de facto group Uprisings of the Earth”. According to a note from the Ministry of the Interior written in recent days, this movement “incites and participates in the commission of sabotage and material damage”.
According to one of the animators of the Uprisings of the Earth, Benoît Feuillu (who uses a pseudonym), interviewed by Le Monde, this announcement is “an attempt by the Ministry of the Interior to clear itself of the police violence of Saturday and his willingness to stifle the environmental movement at the risk of killing people”. He also questioned the execution of this decision: “The Earth Uprisings are a network, it is not a centralized organization, or a small group that can be banned. I am curious to see how the government will dissolve a coalition that brings together a multiple component of peasant organizations, farms, localities, local associations and national organizations…”
The movement was created in January 2021, during an assembly in the ZAD of Notre-Dame-des-Landes (Loire-Atlantique). He intends to “build a network of local struggles” and displays the ambition “to establish a real balance of power in order to wrest the land from industrial and commercial devastation”.
According to the terms of the contradictory dissolution procedure, the movement has ten days to respond to the arguments of the ministry before Gérald Darmanin decides to present a decree of dissolution to the Council of Ministers.
