Several dozen gendarmes were on the last plot of land on the A69 highway occupied by the opposition in the Haute-Garonne on Monday 16 September, in order to evacuate it and monitor the felling of trees, Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists reported. The police peacefully entered the 8,000-square-metre property in Verfeil (Haute-Garonne), some 25 kilometres from Toulouse, where several opposition members, who call themselves “squirrels”, are staying in huts in tall trees.
In the early afternoon, employees of the concessionaire of the future highway, Atosca, cut down the first trees with chainsaws and a backhoe, amidst jeers from the occupants of the ZAD (zone to be defended) who shouted “assassins” EITHER “support for squirrels” and the gendarmes kept them out of the work areas.
The large trees on this property are the last to be felled so that the deforestation operations necessary for the continuation of the project can be carried out throughout the entire route, in the two departments (Haute-Garonne and Tarn) that it covers. At the beginning of September, another ZAD was dismantled in the town of Saïx (Tarn) and all its trees were felled.
“Capitalism that crushes nature”
In an order authorizing the flight of a drone to capture images, published on Sunday, the prefecture of Haute-Garonne mentioned Monday “a gendarmerie operation aimed at evacuating the occupants without rights or titles from the ZAD du Verger, in Verfeil, located on the route of the A69 construction project”. This property was previously inhabited by Alexandra Dupont, a 44-year-old tenant, who returned the keys to the place at noon on Monday to Atosca, who became the owner of the place.
“We are here to ensure M’s safety.me Dupont and all »Colonel Stéphane Dlongeville, one of the leaders of the current operation, told AFP. Before the police arrived on the scene, a young woman opposed to the road, who was masked and on condition of anonymity, told AFP that she was “focused, indignant, anxious, sad and angry at the same time” in view of the planned intervention of the gendarmes. “It is capitalism that is once again crushing nature”estimated.
The town of Le Verger is the latest camp of opponents of the planned 53-kilometre route of this controversial motorway, which is to link Toulouse to Castres, and against which environmental activists have been mobilising for months.
