Europe 1 with AFP 11:11 a.m., November 29, 2022
The Niort Criminal Court handed down suspended prison sentences on Monday evening for all five activists arrested during the demonstration against an agricultural water reservoir in Sainte-Soline.
The sentence, ranging from two months suspended prison sentence for three of the defendants to three months suspended sentence for the other two, is also accompanied by a three-year ban on residence in Deux-Sèvres.
The Niort Criminal Court handed down suspended prison sentences on Monday evening for all five activists arrested during the demonstration against an agricultural water reservoir in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres), the scene of violent clashes at the end of october.
The sentence, ranging from two months suspended prison sentence for three of the defendants to three months suspended sentence for the other two, is also accompanied by a three-year ban on residence in Deux-Sèvres.
The lawyer for two of the respondents, Me Alexis Baudelin, has announced that he is appealing the decision.
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Why the Sainte-Soline mega-basin project is legal
Activists aged 26 to 66
The five activists, aged 26 to 66, were prosecuted for "participation in a group formed to prepare violence" during a demonstration bringing together between 4,000 and 7,000 people in Sainte-Soline against the construction site of a detention of water at the end of October.
Demonstrators and police had deplored dozens of injuries, a handful of them having been hospitalized.
The "basin" of Sainte-Soline is one of the 16 reserves of several hundreds of thousands of m3 which must be created in the Deux-Sèvres.
Developed by a group of 400 farmers with the support of the State, this project aims to make water available for irrigation during the summer, thanks to the pumping of surface water tables in winter.
According to its detractors, these reservoirs represent a form of "water grabbing" intended for "agro-industry".
Other activists, arrested during previous demonstrations against water reservoir projects in Charente-Maritime and Deux-Sèvres in September and November 2021, will appear on January 5 and 6 in La Rochelle and Niort.