A69: massive use of tear gas near an opposition camp

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: Valentine CHAPUIS / AFP 4:28 p.m., February 11, 2024

The police made massive use of tear gas on Sunday, for the third day in a row, in the Tarn commune of Saïx, in the immediate vicinity of a camp of opponents of the A69 motorway, noted AFP journalists. "One hundred people still on site in total, most of them in the process of leaving. The gendarmes have cleared the barricades on the Chemin de la Gascarié", near the ZAD (zone to be defended) of La Crém'arbre, at the exit from Castres, indicated in a message at the beginning of the afternoon the Tarn prefecture.

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An AFP journalist and photographer witnessed clashes between the gendarmes, who fired at least ten tear gas shots, saturating the air with irritating white smoke, and around a hundred opponents of the motorway under construction between Toulouse and Castres.

Like Friday and Saturday, the opponents occupied a railway line running along the wooded and private land where Zadists occupy cabins built in the trees to try to prevent the continuation of the A69 construction site, the route of which passes through this land. the owner is in the process of expropriation. The SNCF has set up a bus system to compensate for the interruption of traffic on this line.

“Risks of major disturbances to public order”

On Friday, the prefect of Tarn issued an order prohibiting any demonstration or gathering on public roads in the town of Saïx, citing "risks of major disturbances to public order". Since Friday, the police have systematically cleared the makeshift barricades that the demonstrators subsequently reconstructed. The gendarmerie made two arrests on Friday and two on Saturday, according to the prefecture, which did not mention others on Sunday.

The presence of the police did not prevent Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg from coming on Saturday to a weekend of mobilization against the A69 which took place a few hundred meters from the ZAD. After the arrival of Greta Thunberg, who revived media interest in a protest movement which seemed to be running out of steam, the socialist president of the Tarn departmental council, Christophe Ramond, denounced a "circus" and affirmed once again that this highway is an “absolute necessity to open up” the department and “support” its economy, which environmentalists contest.