Lhe opponents of the A69 Toulouse-Castres met in Saïx, in the Tarn, denouncing a project which they consider contradictory with the climate emergency and demanding “fewer cars, less tar”, during a weekend end of festive mobilization, but closely followed by the authorities. Dancing to the rhythm of percussion, sometimes in the rain, around 8,200 people according to the organizers, 4,500 according to the prefecture, walked all afternoon on paths and through the woods, following part of the route of the future highway .
Some demonstrators waved banners: “Less energy, fewer cars, less tar”, “A69, a cul-de-sac motorway that will end up spinning” or “We don’t dissolve the earth that raised “. Earlier, during a press conference, the collective The way is free, Extinction Rebellion, the Peasant Confederation and the Uprisings of the Earth (SLT), organizers of the demonstration, demanded “the immediate stop” of the site.
Their representatives recalled their proposal for the development of the existing national road and denounced the loss of agricultural land or biodiversity that the construction of this 53 km stretch of motorway would entail. They also deplored the cost of the Toulouse-Castres trip, which could reach 17 euros round trip, “an organized social injustice”, according to a representative of the SLT.
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“There is still a chance of stopping (the construction site), even if it is slim”, declared to Vendine Gilbert Hébrard, former mayor of this commune of Haute-Garonne, on the edge of the Tarn, where opponents have since several weeks erected tents in plane trees to prevent them from being felled. “This project has become emblematic of the climate fight,” added Sabine Mousson, mayor of Teulat, a Tarn town which, she said, would be “cut in two” by the future highway.
On Saturday, EELV deputy Julien Bayou described this project as “the most expensive motorway in France” as “anachronistic” on France Info. Sandrine Rousseau, another EELV deputy, said she hoped “that the prefect has learned the lessons of what happened in Sainte-Soline”, denouncing on Europe 1 “a project which makes no sense, which is dated years 1980-1990”. But other elected officials from the Tarn, from all political stripes, support the motorway, which would reduce the Castres-Toulouse journey by around twenty minutes in 2025, from a duration of just over an hour today. .
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Disappearance of agricultural land
“If we want to be consistent, this project must be abandoned”, for his part declared to Agence France-Presse the deputy LFI Manuel Bompard, present Saturday in Saïx. “We are here for the preservation of agricultural land and also for the preservation of biodiversity”, specifies Monique, a sixty-year-old protester who prefers to keep her name silent.
Less than a month after the clashes between gendarmes and demonstrators against the mega-basins in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres), the authorities are closely monitoring this mobilization. The prefect of Tarn, François-Xavier Lauch, clarified on Friday that the 800 gendarmes and police officers mobilized will remain in the background if the demonstration is “peaceful”.
Until then, the dispute had centered near Vendine, in Haute-Garonne, on the edge of the Tarn, where opponents had settled in plane trees to avoid felling them. This time, the gathering is held in Saïx, 37 km further, where activities are planned all weekend: debates, concerts and even a race of soapboxes or “racing cars” going “as slowly as possible”.READ ALSO Motorway project between Castres and Toulouse: the true from the false
On Friday, hundreds of activists (400, according to the prefect) from various nearby regions set up two marquees and tents, set up tables, a bar and a canteen on an area equivalent to ten football pitches.
Atosca, the private concessionaire of the A69, qualifies its project as “exemplary” in terms of respect for the environment and job creation. Regarding agricultural land, the planned footprint has been reduced from 380 to 300 hectares, according to its general manager Martial Gerlinger.
At the exit of Vendine, center of the dispute until recent days, dozens of posters against the A69, and rather defending a development of the existing national road, are still stuck on the threatened trees. But on Saturday, opponents will gather in Saïx, some 37 km away, in the Tarn. The prefect of Tarn, François-Xavier Lauch, clarified Friday evening that the 800 gendarmes and police officers mobilized will remain in the background if the demonstration is “peaceful”.
