“Up to 8,200 protestors denounce A69 motorway project in Toulouse-Castres, citing climate emergency and social injustice”

Thousands of opponents of the A69 motorway between Toulouse and Castres gathered on Saturday in Saïx (Tarn) to denounce this project deemed to be in contradiction with the climate emergency, during a day under close surveillance but without overflow.

Dancing to the rhythm of the drums, 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 held up banners: “Less energy, fewer cars, less tar” or “A69, a dead-end highway that will end up spinning”.

Organizers of the mobilization, the collective The way is free, Extinction Rebellion, the Peasant Confederation and the Uprisings of the Earth (SLT) have asked for “the immediate stop” of the site. During a press conference, they again proposed a development of the existing national road and denounced the loss of agricultural land or biodiversity that the construction of this 53 kilometer stretch of motorway would entail.

“It’s no longer possible”

“It’s a project that dates back to the 90s, which thinks of the territory and the development of the territory only with the car and the motorways. And in fact that is no longer possible! “, declared Sandrine Rousseau, deputy EELV, also came on the spot, estimating that “there is really no need for an additional motorway”.

Also denouncing “organized social injustice”, they deplored the cost of the Toulouse-Castres trip, which could reach 17 euros round trip. “If we want to be consistent, this project must be abandoned”, for his part estimated the deputy LFI Manuel Bompard, present in the demonstration.

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”. In the afternoon, some demonstrators mounted a wall in the middle of the current National.

For several weeks, the dispute had been centered in Vendine, in Haute-Garonne, on the edge of the Tarn, where opponents had settled in plane trees to avoid felling them.

But others support the project, which would reduce the Castres-Toulouse journey by around twenty minutes in 2025, from a duration of just over an hour today.