The first day of the weekend of mobilization against the high-speed line (LGV) project between Bordeaux and Toulouse was held on Saturday, October 12, in Lerm-et-Musset, south of the Gironde, 75 kilometers from Bordeaux. a sometimes tense atmosphere but without major incidents. Before this unauthorized gathering, which brought together nearly 1,000 people, the prefecture of Gironde had reported the presence of a large number of hooded participants and about twenty people “in S files.”
A single incident finally marked this day started by around twenty groups, including Les Soulèvements de la Terre. In the middle of the afternoon, a handful of hooded men dressed in black approached the few gendarmes stationed nearby, whose vehicle was stuck in the sand. Tear gas is fired, then a grenade, the gendarmes finally abandon their vehicle, which is then violently damaged.
In addition to this event, the day was marked by an hour and a half walk through the forest, punctuated by songs and chants chanted along the way. Upon arrival, the activists built and installed a wooden “observation viewpoint”, several meters high, in the heart of the Ciron forest, on the future route of the high-speed line.
At the foot of the installation, 78-year-old Xiko (who did not want to give his name) explains that he traveled from the Basque Country to support the movement. He lives in Arcangues, near Bayonne, where the second section of the extension: the Toulouse-Dax line. “I have the LGV tour in my living room, he says. I have been interested in it for thirty years, I am part of associations that fight against the project. » If you admit that not yet “nothing official was received” about a possible expropriation, he says it bluntly: “The start of construction is scheduled for 2040. I will be dead, but it doesn’t matter, I keep fighting. » This project, for him, “It’s no use. To save what, fifteen, twenty minutes from Bordeaux to Hendaye? So that? »
A “completely inept” project
Philippe Barbedienne, president of Sepanso Gironde, an environmental defense association, has also been fighting against this project for twenty years. he judges him “Completely inept. We are told that we are going to waste more than 15 billion euros to carry out this project, precisely at a time when France is drowning in debt.” He says he is deeply attached to this country of Ziron, the land of his mother and his ancestors, which is why he lent his 2.5 hectares of land for this weekend of mobilization. “We want to preserve it. And currently all the most detestable projects are imposed on us: we already have the gas pipelines, the threat of a very high voltage line that should pass through here, the useless A65 highway that could have been done differently…”
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