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France: Gendarmerie vehicles burned during a demonstration against a “mega-basin”

SAINTE-SOLINE, Deux-Sevres (Reuters) – Gendarmerie vehicles were set on fire on Saturday during clashes between security forces and demonstrators protesting against a project for a large water retention reservoir in Sainte-Soline, in the Two Sevres.

The prefect of the department, Emmanuelle Dubée, denounced in a press release the presence of “several hundred radical individuals preparing violent actions” on the sidelines of a gathering of “several tens of thousands of people” in the neighboring town of Vanzay.

Marc Fesneau, Minister of Agriculture, said on France Inter that machetes, axes and distress flares had been seized on the eve of this demonstration banned by the authorities for security reasons, for which 3,000 gendarmes were mobilized.

The vast reservoir under construction is intended for the irrigation of agricultural land in times of drought.

The detractors of this type of project qualify them as “mega-basins” contributing to the drying up of groundwater for the benefit of intensive agriculture which they consider outdated in the context of climate change.

(Report Yves Herman and Marco Trujillo, written by Bertrand Boucey, with Gus Trompiz)

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    Une femme se plaint qu’un homme la “fixe” à la salle de sport, mais il est non-voyant

    dans les Deux-Sèvres, aux sources du conflit de l’eau