The vital prognosis of this 30-year-old man, victim of a head trauma, remained engaged Sunday according to the prosecutor's office of Niort which has opened an investigation into the circumstances in which three protesters in total, including a 19-year-old woman and another 27-year-old man, were seriously injured.

According to a still provisional assessment provided by the prosecutor's office, 29 gendarmes were injured, two of them seriously without their lives being threatened, seven demonstrators in total having been taken care of by the emergency services.

But the organizers - the agricultural union Confédération paysanne, the collective of associations Bassines non merci and the environmental movement of the Soulings of the Earth - report a much heavier toll: 200 demonstrators injured, 40 of them serious.

The organizers of the demonstration against the construction of "basins" in the Deux-Sèvres, during a press conference in Melle, March 26, 2023 © THIBAUD MORITZ / AFP

That of the prosecutor's office relates only to the injured officially rescued, which may explain the discrepancy between the figures.

"Intox"

Since Saturday, authorities and organizers blame each other for the violence that occurred around the basin under construction in Sainte-Soline, one of 16 planned in the region for a total capacity of six million cubic meters.

This project led by a cooperative of irrigating farmers, with the support of the State, has long been contested among others in Poitou-Charentes, where the issue of "basins" embodies the growing tensions around water sharing at a time of climate change.

Their division into three processions was declared to encircle the basin to "stop" the construction but clashes quickly broke out on the site, transformed into a scene of war, the two sides accusing each other of having fired first, tear gas grenades or Molotov cocktails.

The government denounced "an intolerable wave of violence", the organizers "a massive repression operation" and "a violent drift of the State". Much of the crowd remained peaceful, according to AFP journalists.

Observers

Observers from the League of Human Rights question "an immoderate and indiscriminate use of force on all those present, with a clear objective: to prevent access to the basin, whatever the human cost".

A wounded man treated on the sidelines of clashes between police and opponents of the construction of water retention "basins", in Sainte-Soline in the Deux-Sèvres, March 25, 2023 © Thibaud MORITZ / AFP

According to them, the processions were targeted before and after their arrival on the scene by firing tear gas grenades, stun and explosive "GM2L and GENL type", as well as LBD 40. "Grenades were sent very far and indiscriminately" and the detonations "were regularly followed by cries of crying for help".

The LDH also points to shots in the direction of elected officials and obstacles to the arrival of help, especially for the protester between life and death who would not have been helicoptered for more than three hours, according to the organizers.

The authorities attribute the delay in the intervention of the emergency services to renewed violence against the gendarmes who had to secure their access to the site. According to the prefect of Deux-Sèvres, "at no time have elected officials been identified in this area".

Protesters near gendarmerie vehicles set on fire during clashes between police and opponents of the construction of water retention "basins", in Sainte-Soline in the Deux-Sèvres department, on March 25, 2023 © pascal lachenaud / AFP

"Faced with extremely violent individuals", the gendarmes claim to have made "a proportionate use of force, massively using tear gas", as well as de-encirclement grenades "to preserve their integrity" and LBD shots "in moments of great tension". In total, 4,000 grenades were fired by the police, according to the Minister of the Interior.

© 2023 AFP