- Extinction Rebellion and other environmental associations have formed a human chain to design an SOS and a STOP.
- This symbolic action was aimed at supporting the legal appeals filed against this road detour project to the north-west of Bordeaux.
- This project, already canceled in the past, would threaten protected species, as well as a source of drinking water.
- The departmental council assures for its part having obtained all the environmental guarantees, and that the project is necessary for this sector.
Twenty degrees on February 2… The ideal time to mobilize the troops during a demonstration against a road diversion project near Bordeaux. And the opportunity to remind for these environmental activists, that "global warming is not just the delirium of some collapsologists ..."
This Sunday noon, some 150 people gathered in Saint-Aubin-De-Médoc, on the borders of the metropolis of Bordeaux, the starting point for the famous "Taillan-Médoc detour" whose work has just started . At the call of Extinction Rebellion, ANV (Non-Violent Action) COP 21, and local environmental associations like Natur'Jalles, these activists came to say, calmly, their opposition to this project which they say is strongly impact the soils, rivers and biodiversity of the sector.
Under the gaze of some gendarmes, the demonstrators formed a human chain to draw the words "SOS" and "STOP". "The idea with this symbolic action is to support the legal appeals filed against this project by the associations Natur'Jalles and France Nature Environment, and to alert the magistrates who will examine this file on February 12, explains Elodie, of Extinction Rebellion Bordeaux. We want this project to be overhauled, and we will not stop there if ever the decision of 12 is not favorable to us. "
"We are alive we are nature that defends" chant the demonstrators against the Taillan-Medoc road diversion project in #Gironde #Bordeaux #environnement #route pic.twitter.com/ChBiiHYR29
- mibosredon (@mibosredon) February 2, 2020Several remedies in the past
This new remedy is a bit of a tile for the project leaders - the Gironde departmental council and the mayor of Taillan-Médoc Agnès Versepuy - who thought they were finally done with the dispute. This file, which is over 30 years old, has already had its share of appeals and cancellations before the administrative court, due to the threat it poses to the natural habitat of a hundred animal species (butterflies, amphibians ...), some of which are threatened with disappearance.
After having reviewed its copy, reduced part of the infrastructure, and compensated part of the destruction by the creation of new natural habitats, the departmental council, which obtained the green light from the national nature protection council last September (CNPN), then that of the Gironde prefecture, said he was confident this time to carry out the construction of this new 8 km road bar. Ensuring that they now have all the environmental guarantees, the first picks were given in November.
A threat to drinking water?
But patatras, on January 23, Natur'Jalles and FNE Nouvelle Aquitaine filed a new action for annulment with the administrative court of Bordeaux to contest the decision of the prefect of Gironde. And the two associations demand that work be stopped.
To bring water to their mill, they also rely on a new report, commissioned from a geologist, who claims that this project poses a threat of pollution to a source of drinking water which partly supplies the metropolis of Bordeaux. What the departmental council refutes.
The water drop…
Anyway, this new element is generating a mobilization against the project wider than ever. Extinction Rebellion recognizes that this new report is a bit of a drop in the bucket… "This was the trigger for us, because now the whole metropolitan area is concerned, and XR cannot let that go, continues Elodie . But we are not all that bohemian Bordeaux, and the whole principle of biodiversity concerns us, on all territories. "
The environmental movement more generally denounces “the all-car policy that always wins, when we know that it does not work: the more roads, the more housing estates, the more there is traffic… "
Over 1,000 trucks pass through the town of Taillan every day
However, the inhabitants of Taillan-Médoc, who see their town crossed by 20,000 vehicles every day, including 1,000 to 1,500 trucks, are overwhelmingly in favor of this project, which they have been waiting for a long time. "Today there is a very significant thrombosis in Taillan, we must act for the lives of these inhabitants", explained Alain Renard, vice-president of the departmental council, to 20 Minutes last November. The elected representative also puts forward "the issue for the whole connection between the Médoc and the metropolis" that this deviation represents.
"I understand the inhabitants of Taillan," says the representative of Extinction Rebellion, "but I think that we have not studied enough other solutions, with existing roads. Above all, by building a new deviation, we are not tackling the root of the problem; it would be better to think seriously about boosting freight. "
The departmental council, for its part hopes that the administrative court will not put it in the dark again, and that it will be able to complete its work for 2022 as planned. The best.
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