Toulouse-Castres motorway: the noose is tightening on the ZAD of the future a69

Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credit: ED JONES / AFP 8:22 p.m., February 17, 2024

Dozens of police officers had completely surrounded on Saturday evening, in Saïx (Tarn), the trees on which opponents of the Toulouse-Castres highway are camped, who fear imminent expulsion, AFP journalists noted. The police, "around a hundred" at the end of the afternoon, according to the prefecture, blocked access to the woods of the Zone to be defended (ZAD), created by opponents of this controversial project, in the hope of preventing the felling of these trees located on the route of the future highway.

Four associations filed an “environmental criminal referral”

Kept away from the woods, around thirty opponents encouraged those remaining at the top of the trees, called the “squirrels”: “Hold on!”, “Thank you for what you are doing!” Others played music or said poems. In the trees, 18 activists still occupy the cabins, according to Thomas Digard, from the Voie est libre collective, present on site. The prefecture had estimated their number at “around ten” on Friday. “It is impossible to resupply them, but they have enough to last,” Thomas Digard told AFP. The police “installed searchlights last night. They launched tear gas grenades and they took turns regularly,” he added.

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Opponents of the A69 project also told AFP that they would set up another ground camp a few hundred meters further on. Still according to opponents, a backhoe entered the woods early Saturday afternoon. The prefecture, for its part, declared to AFP that “machines are on site to begin the work”. Atosca, the concessionaire designated by the State, believes that since February 15 it has the right to resume tree cutting on the route.

For the Way is free, the wood occupied by the zadists being of “strong environmental importance”, it can only be cleared between September 1 and October 15. Four associations thus filed an “environmental criminal summary” on February 9 with the Toulouse public prosecutor’s office to prohibit the resumption of land clearing. On Friday, several associations, including Attac and the LDH, denounced "excesses" by the police around the ZAD, accusing them in particular of depriving activists camping on the trees of any possibility of supply. Contacted by AFP, the prefecture did not wish to comment on this subject. The associations also claimed to have filed a complaint against X for "voluntarily endangering the lives of others".