Despite the presence of opponents of the A69 on site, including in the trees, around sixty trees were cut down in just a few hours on Sunday 1st.Ahem September on the route of this controversial motorway, according to the Tarn prefecture. “The vast majority were cut down: 59 trees. About ten still remain.” to be demolished, the prefecture clarified early in the afternoon, adding that“There are four people still perched”.
Deforestation on the construction site for the future Toulouse-Castres motorway began around midnight, “under the protection of the police”according to the same source. “The gendarmes were targeted by mortar fire and projectiles launched by catapults”but “There is no cause for regret for any damage to property or people”continues in a press release.
Seventeen people have been arrested since Friday, when opponents of the motorway project were evicted from a camp near the construction site in Saïx. Several of them, however, remained perched in trees, hoping to prevent their felling. The activists had previously built cabins in the trees so that they could retreat there in the event of intervention by the gendarmes, said an Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalist.
Investigation of fire damage and violence at meetings
On Sunday afternoon, the arson attacks continued on the grounds of the former camp, under the watchful eye of about twenty opposition activists. About fifty kilometres away, in Verfeil, in the Haute-Garonne, anti-A69 activists occupying another plot of land on the route of the future motorway said they had been the victims of a second arson attempt during the night from Saturday to Sunday.
Traces of fire were visible on the seat of a car as well as at the entrance to the premises, where the letterbox had been burnt, according to an AFP journalist. Following a complaint from these occupants, who reported similar events on the night of 25 to 26 August, the Toulouse prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into the material damage caused by the fire.
The Castres prosecutor’s office is also conducting an investigation into the damage caused by fires and violence at meetings held at an opposition camp in mid-August in Tarn. Various damages have also occurred at the site in recent months, including fires caused by construction equipment, without delaying the work, according to the motorway concessionaire Atosca.
