Jean-Luc Mélenchon denounced Monday a “trap” that in his eyes organized the authorities in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres), where violent clashes took place on Saturday during a demonstration against “mega-basins” , leaving two participants between life and death.
Several demonstrations were “seriously and deliberately injured”, declared Jean-Luc Mélenchon at a press conference in Paris.
He denounced a “trap” “deliberately organized” in the absence of police roadblocks placed upstream of the site where several thousand demonstrators went, and where several thousand gendarmes were deployed.
The former presidential candidate replied to Emmanuel Macron, who ruled on Monday that the rebellious sought to “delegitimize” the institutions: “The one who delegitimizes is him, with the stacked recourse to all forms of procedures to shorten and prevent debates” in Parliament.
“He gives the Fifth Republic the most brutal and most undemocratic version,” added the rebellious, who pleads for a Sixth Republic strengthening the powers of parliament.
In demonstration or in Sainte-Soline, “the violence that we see on all sides, they are unable to contain it, and it is his fault”, insisted Mr. Mélenchon.
Three rebellious deputies present in Sainte-Soline on Saturday recounted what they had seen. “There was a grenade (tear gas) for two people, a grenade every second, it was an indescribable visual and sound chaos”, denounced Clémence Guetté, elected from Val-de-Marne.
“We come back shocked,” she said, recounting having seen “wounded by the dozens, in the face, with holes in the legs, devastating wounds, and emergency vehicles were prevented from coming to the scene” .
The rebellious announced that they would ask for a parliamentary commission of inquiry on the choices of maintaining order in Sainte-Soline. But they have already used their unique drawing right, which would allow its creation of right, in the parliamentary session.
“Behind the quads and the water cannons, it was the billions of agribusiness” that the authorities sought to protect, accused the deputy of Côtes-d’Armor Murielle Lepvraud, while the demonstrators advocated peasant agriculture and sober in the use of water.
The Niort prosecutor’s office has announced the opening of an investigation into the circumstances in which three demonstrators were seriously injured. Interior Minister Gérard Darmanin for his part targeted “an unprecedented surge of violence” from certain demonstrators, which injured 47 gendarmes.
03/27/2023 21:24:41 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
