The police intervened at midday, Sunday October 22, to dislodge opponents of the A69 motorway construction site in the locality of La Crémade, east of Castres, where they were organizing in a zone to defend (ZAD), noted an Agence France-Presse journalist on site.
Several dozen mobile gendarmes in riot gear began shortly before 1 p.m. to surround a group of expropriated houses near the route of the future highway, invested the day before at the end of the afternoon by around a hundred activists to create a ZAD, in the image of what had been organized against the Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport project near Nantes.
“I will be very simple, very clear, very firm: there cannot be a ZAD and there will be no ZAD on the A69,” declared at the same time the Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune, guest of “Political Questions” (France inter, France Télévisions, Le Monde).
Review of highway projects
“I do not want a country where we have zero infrastructure, zero projects and where, even with valid arguments, a minority would impose its law on elected officials and the elected majority,” he insisted, boasting of having launched an unprecedented review of motorway projects, some of which “will continue and others will be abandoned”, and of which he will give the results in a few weeks.
“The ZAD is not a festive and friendly element, it is a violation of the basic rules of property and public space, so no! “, he said, reproaching opponents for the presence in Saturday’s demonstration of “2,500 radical, hooded, violent elements.”
On site, the mobile gendarmes dislodged the demonstrators from the group of houses occupied, since late Saturday afternoon, where they had begun to barricade themselves with concrete blocks, stones, old tires, tree trunks and planned to hold a general meeting at 1 p.m., noted AFP.
Anti-riot forces also used tear gas canisters to disperse the demonstrators in a meadow adjacent to the group of houses. Two armored vehicles, which came to support the police, faced the demonstrators chanting “No macadam, no macadam” and some of whom threw projectiles.