More than a hundred people demonstrated this Saturday in Niort and Poitiers to protest against the project of agricultural basins planned in Poitou-Charentes.
The battle for water is intensifying in Poitou-Charentes, demonstrators protested simultaneously in Vienne and Deux-Sèvres to protest against plans to build 93 basins in Poitou-Charentes.
The collective “Bassines, non merci” led a morning of action this Saturday in Niort, this movement is a first warning shot before the three days of mobilization scheduled for March 25, 26, and 27.
According to opponents, the fifteen basins planned in the Marais poitevin will only benefit 220 operators out of the 5,000 in the Deux-Sèvres department.
There is a hardening of our positions due to the will of the French State to force passage, we learned that two basins were built in Berry, it is the State which hardens the situation, it is the State which says that we will not discuss and that we will do like that to please the FNSEA.
Julien Le Guet, spokesperson for the Bassines collective, no thank you.
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Representatives of several associations also demonstrated this Saturday in Poitiers against the 41 agricultural basin projects planned in Vienne. After an occupation of the Joubert bridge, on the Clain, the demonstrators oorganized a fake fishing party, a parody in which the pro-basins are booed by the crowd. A procession then went to the Vienne prefecture.
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This protest movement comes at a time when the prefecture and irrigators are asking the Water Agency for funding for replacement reserves.
“We are against these mega-basins, the participants who have not signed the protocol meet today to say that this project is harmful to the environment”, protests Francine Berry.
“We do not have enough guarantees to ensure that there will be enough water and that nature and biodiversity will not be altered”, warns this activist.
“It is a protocol of disagreement. There is a danger of drying up the groundwater. Today the groundwater has not recharged. It is forbidden to draw on the groundwater and in the courses of water, until March 31. The basins must be filled between December 1 and April 1, climate change is here, we cannot ignore it. This project does not hold because of climate change, it does not there is more water. It is time to move on to another territorial project”, concludes Francine Berry.
This project poses the problem of water sharing and access to water, according to the Confédération paysanne which considers that this project is not in conformity because it does not allow access to water for all ” , warns Nicolas Fortin, a farmer from Vienne, a member of the Confédération paysanne.
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