While the clearing of more than 2 hectares is planned from September 1st as part of the railway developments north of Toulouse, since Friday evening, opponents of the LGV project have decided to climb trees near the Castelnau d’Estrétefonds lock.
After the A69, will the construction site of the future high-speed line between Bordeaux and Toulouse become the new place of opposition between environmental activists and the public authorities? On Friday, while in Saïx, in the Tarn, environmental activists were dislodged from trees slated for felling as part of the construction of the A69 motorway between Toulouse and Castres, north of the Ville Rose, others were climbing ash and maple trees.
Clearing possible from September 1st
“This is the non-violent method we use when we can’t be heard and when we want to avoid seeing trees cut down,” recalls Tom, one of the climbers who has been on one of the peaks since Friday evening, between Castelnau d’Estrétefonds and Saint-Jory. With other members of the national tree monitoring group, he hopes to stop the project to clear more than 2.5 hectares of land that could start on September 1 as part of the railway development work north of Toulouse (AFNT), the first phase of the LGV between Bordeaux and Toulouse. This Saturday, there were about ten of them on site, organizing supplies and setting up the camp that could continue if they don’t win their case.
The first spadeworks of this vast project were done last May. On this section of more than 17 km between Toulouse and Castelnau d’Estrétefonds, SNCF Réseau plans to create a four-track platform that will connect the Matabiau station to the future connection to the new GPSO line, for Grand projet ferroviaire du Sud-Ouest.
Summary hearing suspended on September 16
For environmental activists, it should be classified as a “large, costly and useless project”, like the A69. After filing an appeal with the prefect in April against the environmental authorisation granted on 9 February to the AFNT, Friends of the Earth and Thomas Brail’s National Tree Surveillance Group filed a contentious appeal before the administrative court in June. “And given the urgency of the situation, we filed a suspension order in July to suspend the work”, said Jean Olivier, co-president of Friends of the Earth Midi-Pyrénées, this Saturday. This case was to be argued in August, but the court postponed the hearing until 16 September.
Also read:
Who are the “anti LGV” people who oppose the high-speed train project between Bordeaux and Toulouse?
“However, from September 1st, they plan to clear 2.5 hectares of wooded area and a whole line of trees along the lateral canal to create a fourth railway line. We do not have the right to destroy this biodiversity, if they cut down these trees it will be irreversible. We asked SNCF Réseau to wait at least until the hearing date, they told us ‘don’t count on us’. Our only option was therefore to occupy the land, not just symbolically”, pleads the environmental activist, installed at the foot of the trees where the “squirrels”, as they call themselves, stand guard and have unfurled a banner “+ trees and life, – speed”.
“Squirrels”, opposed to the felling of trees as part of the construction work on the LGV, have climbed trees slated for felling north of Toulouse. DDM – FREDERIC CHARMEUX
They believe that the alternatives to these developments have not been studied enough, that the LGV would be to the detriment of daily trains. For their part, the SNCF and the Occitanie region have always indicated that, on the contrary, the railway star was saturated and that this project, which allows the number of tracks to be increased, would benefit TER users.
“By creating new tracks and separating slow and fast flows, the AFNT operation will improve the capacity of the lines and the fluidity of traffic for liO Trains, freight and the future high-speed line. In addition, the connection between trains and the public transport networks of the Toulouse metropolitan area will be improved, with a quarter-hourly service to all stopping points, from Castelnau d’Estrétefonds to Toulouse-Matabiau station. This will be the first building block of the future Toulouse Metropolitan Regional Express Service (SERM),” the regional council recently recalled.
In the middle of the day, the police visited the site to note the occupation of the trees by environmental activists.
