The right to demonstrate is at the heart of the trial of union officials and environmental activists tried in criminal court, Friday September 8 in Niort, for having organized gatherings, banned by the authorities, against megabasins in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres).
Nine people are being prosecuted for the March 25 demonstration which resulted in violent clashes with the police, leaving many injured – two demonstrators spent several weeks in a coma. In a report published in July, the League for Human Rights denounced a “disproportionate use” of weapons (grenades, LBD) by the police.
Among the defendants are Benoît Feuillu and Basile Dutertre, activists of the Earth Uprisings, Benoît Jaunet and Nicolas Girod, representatives of the Peasant Confederation, as well as Julien Le Guet, spokesperson for the Bassines non merci collective.
Three of them are also being prosecuted for the previous demonstration, on October 29, 2022, as are two trade unionists from the CGT and Solidaires, David Bodin and Hervé Auguin. All risk six months’ imprisonment and a fine of 7,500 euros. The defendants denounce a “political” trial intended, according to them, to muzzle opposition to bedpans.
Lawyers denounce an attack on the right to demonstrate
Their lawyers see the procedure as an attack on the right to demonstrate: Me Pierre Huriet, who will argue for Solidaires, believes that it aims to “discourage social movements”, while his colleague Alice Becker, counsel for CGT trade unionists, criticizes “an obstacle to the freedom to demonstrate, of opinion, but also trade union”.
Chirine Heydari-Malayeri, Inès Giacometti and Balthazar Lévy, lawyers for the Confédération paysanne, deplore for their part “a criminalization of political and trade union action, all the less tolerable as the agricultural union warns about the preservation of water and of equal access to this essential common good”.
Sixteen basins are planned in the Marais Poitevin, including that of Sainte-Soline. These reservoirs dug into the earth aim to store water drawn from groundwater in winter, in order to irrigate crops in summer, when precipitation becomes scarce.
Their supporters make it a crop insurance essential to the survival of irrigating farmers (a minority within the profession) in the face of repeated droughts; opponents denounce a “grabbing” of water by “agro-industry”.
A summary freedom rejected
In form, the defense questions the reasons for prosecuting individuals rather than the organizations they represent. Me Alice Becker also sees “a desire to intimidate individuals and scare people”.
Two other defendants appear for acts of violence, theft and damage linked to the demonstrations. Justice finally accuses some of having refused a genetic fingerprint.
The debate on the right to demonstrate began on Thursday before the Poitiers administrative court, where several unions attacked orders taken by the Deux-Sèvres prefecture to supervise a major demonstration in support of the defendants planned for Friday in Niort.
At the call of their organizations, several thousand people are expected, including the general secretary of the CGT, Sophie Binet, the national secretary of EELV, Marine Tondelier, and a delegation of LFI deputies including their leader, Mathilde Panot.
“In order to guarantee the serenity of the judicial hearing and [to] prevent any risk of disturbances to public order”, the prefecture has prohibited any “gathering” around the court and on the public highway. She authorized police to use drones to monitor the gathering.
The CGT, Solidaires and the Peasant Confederation, joined by the French Lawyers’ Union and the Magistrates’ Union, had filed an interim relief against orders described as “liberticidal”, but the administrative court validated the prefectural security system .