Les Soulèvements de la Terre are currently in their 5th season of actions, having done their first one on the 25th and 26th of May. This action, happening in Sainte-Soline against the construction of so-called mega-basins, was supported by more than 100 organizations, including Confédération paysanne, Bassines Non Merci and Soulèvements de la Terre. Together they mobilized 30 thousand people who gathered at Sainte-Soline and where met by the violent repression of the state, 3200 people strong. From that encounter, 200 protestants were harmed with the police actively repressing the arrival of medical help.
For the past year, the movement from the Marais Poitevin to stop the mega-basins has gained momentum through a series of popular demonstrations and actions of disobedience designed to stop the construction sites in progress. These giant craters of about ten hectares, filled by drawing from groundwater, have become the symbol of a maladaptation to climate change. They embody the maintenance at all costs of excessive irrigation and an agro-industrial model that crushes farmers, destroys natural environments and ultimately threatens populations. From a series of new basins planned in the Deux-Sèvres, these infrastructures threaten to spread to other regions with a lot of public money.
Soulevement de la Terre called for an international anti-basin demonstration, together with a set of associations, unions, parties, NGOs, farms and collectives. The response was a mobilization 30000 people strong, with international and broad societal support. People marched towards the proposed site of the megabasins in a determined atmosphere with a lot of creativity, audacity and unity. During the action, a water pump and central canalization was dug up and disarmed. They planted 300m of hedges a hint towards an agricultural model that respects water and biodiversity. They constructed a market green house next to the basin. The response of the extractivist state was to shoot thousands of cans of tear gas and shoot rubber bullets. Because that was not enough to stop them, the Interior Minister declared that they were going to dissolve the movement.
To that, Soulèvements de la Terre has responded: ” we are very curious to see what would represent the “dissolution” of a coalition that brings together dozens of local collectives, farms, union sections, NGOs across the country. Contrary to the fables that will be delivered by domestic intelligence to designate any leading figures to be pilloried, the Soulèvements de la Terre are not a circumscribed group and represent after 2 years of existence a large network implanted across various regions. But perhaps, in its current rise of authoritarianism, the government is indeed preparing to “dissolve” a good part of the ecological opposition, peasants and trade unions in the country. Since it is wrong to confront it in the street, in the countryside and its political regime seems today reduced to the exercise of the truncheon.”
There are 4 more action-days planned for this season, which can be found here: https://lessoulevementsdelaterre.org/blog/programme-de-la-saison-5.
No bassaran!