About a thousand people took part in a traveling demonstration on Sunday June 11 in the south and north of Nantes, at the call of a group of environmental activists, some of whom carried out the uprooting of plans and pipes. An operation strongly criticized by right-wing politicians.
On Sunday morning, activists of all ages, leaving Saint-Colomban (Loire-Atlantique) traveling mostly by bicycle or on tractors towards Nantes, carried out a first action of “civil disobedience” which consisted in tearing plans of lily of the valley and pipes that irrigated them to replace them with seeds of buckwheat seeds.
The operation aimed to denounce the intensive use of water and sand, the protesters explained. The collective notably includes Les Uprisings of the Earth and La Tête dans le sable, an association that fights for the protection of this resource.
After this action, the right denounced Monday “a rampage”, indignant that the co-organizing collective Les Uprisings of the Earth has still not been dissolved. “Far-left activists ransacked the experiments of market gardeners who aim to understand how to feed France tomorrow,” said the president of the Republicans, Eric Ciotti. “In March, Gérald Darmanin declared that he had initiated the dissolution of the violent group Uprisings of the Earth. Where are we ? he wondered. Same question for the president of Hauts-de-France, Xavier Bertrand, who said his support for farmers, “once again affected by an extremist minority”.
The demonstrators, who walked about 30 kilometers on Sunday, carried signs that read: “L.R.E.M. Liberez les Radis Et la Mâche”, “Eco-resist against the climate liberal-terrorists”, or even “Darmanin, if you are looking for terrorists, go see Lafarge in Syria instead”. “We are going to be faced with a major drought next summer, we already are, and therefore we cannot continue to dry out our soils, to artificialize all our bocage”, had estimated Julie Laernoes, deputy of Europe Ecology- The Greens (EELV) of Loire-Atlantique, present, like other elected officials, at the event.
The government decree on the dissolution has not yet been signed
The starting point of the southern procession was in Saint-Colomban, where there are sand quarries whose extraction “disfigures the landscape, destroys the bocage and deeply affects the water tables”, according to a press release from the Uprisings of the Earth. “The quarries are a target of choice to bring together all those who fight against the artificialization of land, in Loire-Atlantique and elsewhere”, had denounced Les Uprisings of the Earth, whose government has been considering the dissolution since March 25. The collective had co-organized the demonstration against the artificial water retention of Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres) and three days later, Gérald Darmanin announced that he had initiated the procedure for the dissolution of the group. To date, the government decree has not yet been signed.
The president of Hauts-de-France, Xavier Bertrand, said Monday his support for farmers, “once again affected by an extremist minority”. For the boss of the senators Les Républicains (LR), Bruno Retailleau, “the impunity enjoyed by these ecological associations is delusional”. Specialist in agricultural issues at LR, MP Julien Dive condemned the action of “a few brainless people” carried out in the name of “misplaced and limited well-thinking”. The Secretary of State for Youth, Sarah El Haïry, for her part, “firmly” condemned these actions.
On the majority side, the patroness of the Renaissance deputies, Aurore Bergé, said her “total support for our market gardeners and farmers who suffer stupidity and looting”, believing that “no impunity can exist”.