Benjamin Peter, edited by Gauthier Delomez / Photo credits: Patrick Batard / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 06:07, April 21, 2023

Many actions are to be organized this weekend on the route of the future A69 motorway linking Castres to Toulouse. The authorities fear overflows similar to those observed for the Sainte-Soline basins. The prefecture will also deploy nearly 800 mobile gendarmes and CRS.

They could be between 1,500 and 2,000 according to an intelligence note, including a hundred radical demonstrators. Several organizations including the radical ecology movement Les Soulèvements de la Terre (SLT) will carry out actions this weekend on the route of the future A69 motorway linking Castres to Toulouse in Haute-Garonne to contest this project. The local authorities, fearing excesses similar to those of the Sainte-Soline basins, will deploy a significant device: in total, the prefecture has planned to call on nearly 800 mobile gendarmes and CRS.

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Fears of sabotage

On site, the work has not really begun. Moreover, for several days, the activists of the collective La Voix est libre repeat that here, there is nothing to break. But what the authorities fear are first of all sabotage of the machines of the company Atosca in charge of the work at their base of life.

The other sensitive point is the Saïx camp, a private field but located partly on the route. This is where the gathering must take place. Activists have planned to hold conferences, they have imagined a race of cardboard cars to ridicule the highway project, and many have planned to spend the night there. As of Thursday, tents were already beginning to be set up.

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On Saturday, in the early afternoon, a demonstration is also planned along the current national road. A 12 km route has been deposited in the prefecture. But this one is "not precise enough", answers for the moment the prefecture which requires more information on the path that the procession intends to take. The prefect also indicates that he will not tolerate any degradation and especially no sustainable installation after this weekend. There is no question of allowing a ZAD to be set up that could slow down the construction site.