Sainte-Soline: Darmanin initiates the dissolution of "Uprisings for the Earth"

The Minister of the Interior announced this during the session of questions to the government in the National Assembly, during which he came under fire of questions about the events of Sainte-Soline and the maintenance of order during the demonstrations against the pension reform.

The images of pitched battle between gendarmes and demonstrators hooded around a "megabasin" and their balance sheet raise since Saturday criticism, questions and concerns.

In total, two protesters were still in a coma on Tuesday, including one with a life-threatening prognosis. The organizers said 200 people were injured, 40 of them seriously, and the authorities said 47 gendarmes were injured.

A much heavier toll than during the previous demonstration against water reservoirs in the Deux-Sèvres, also banned, last October.

According to the gendarmerie, two gendarmes who had used their launcher of defense balls (LBD) from a quad, were suspended and the General Inspectorate of the National Gendarmerie (IGGN) opened an administrative investigation.

On Tuesday, Mr. Darmanin once again questioned the "ultra-left" who wants to "bring down democracy".

The day before, at a press conference, he had denounced "the unprecedented surge on the part of armed and violent individuals" whose "plan to injure or kill gendarmes".

"Ecosabotage"

The minister insisted before the deputies on "the extreme violence of small groups registered by the intelligence services sometimes for many years, such as the de facto group +Souluprisings of the land +", one of the organizers of Saturday's demonstration.

According to a note from the Ministry of the Interior dated Tuesday, "Uprisings of the Earth" (SLT) "incites and participates in the commission of sabotage and material damage".

Clashes between protesters and gendarmes, March 25, 2023 in Sainte-Soline, Deux-Sèvres © THIBAUD MORITZ / AFP

Created in 2021 by "members of the ultra-left from the former ZAD (zone to defend) of Notre-Dame-des-Landes" in Loire-Atlantique, SLT has built, according to this note, "the concept of +disarmament + intended to accept the practice of ecosabotage".

Last October, during a first demonstration against the "mega basins" in Sainte-Soline, Gérald Darmanin had castigated the "ecoterrorism" of the perpetrators of violence.

Under the terms of the adversarial dissolution procedure, SLT has ten days to respond to the Ministry's arguments before Mr Darmanin decides to submit a decree of dissolution to the Council of Ministers.

"This is an attempt at diversion that aims to make people forget the disastrous and tragic policy of policing in Sainte-Soline," Basile Dutertre, a spokesman for SLT, told AFP.

"The people who order to shoot at the crowd with weapons of war are the ones who accuse us of ultra-violence, it is a staggering reversal," said Dutertre, who recalled that SLT was "not the only one" to have called for Saturday's demonstration.

SLT called for rallies in front of prefectures across France Thursday at 19 p.m. "against the repression in Sainte-Soline".

Two reports requested by Gérald Darmanin, one to the Prefect of Deux-Sèvres and the other to the Director General of the National Gendarmerie (DGGN), on the events of Sainte-Soline have been posted on the website of the Ministry of the Interior. That of the prefect details the wounded, the rescue and that of the DGGN the actions of the gendarmes and the means employed.

© 2023 AFP