“Anti-bassines” demonstration in La Rochelle: black blocs and clashes with the police on the fringes of the procession

Manifestation anti-bassines à La Rochelle. MAXPPP – Jean-Christophe Sounalet

the essential This Saturday, July 20, activists are demonstrating against irrigation basin projects. Gathered in La Rochelle, in a march that was intended to be pacifist, the procession, dislocated, gave rise in the middle of the day to clashes with the police.

Clashes between radical activists and the police, Saturday July 20 in La Rochelle, after the dislocation of one of the processions of the second day of demonstration against the "basins", contested irrigation reserves.

400 black blocks

One of the two processions heading towards the commercial port, in which there were 400 "black blocs"according to the authorities, turned around and broke apart after a charge by the gendarmes. A chase then began between demonstrators and the police, with projectiles thrown and tear gas grenades fired.

DIRECT – Anti-bassines : Situation très tendue à La Rochelle, entre des manifestants et les CRS. Des lancers de projectiles et des feux de poubelles du côté des casseurs, les CRS répliquent par des tirs de gaz lacrymogènes et des charges pic.twitter.com/iAem8FgjJF

— France Bleu La Rochelle (@Bleu_Rochelle) July 20, 2024

DIRECT – Anti-bassines : la situation dégénère entre les CRS et certains manifestants armés de projectiles qui cassent près du port de La Pallice, à la Rochelle. Des charges sont menées pic.twitter.com/i5NLp2vinX

— France Bleu La Rochelle (@Bleu_Rochelle) July 20, 2024

After an aborted demonstration on Friday in a burning field near Poitiers, opponents of the "bassines", reservations irrigation, set sail on Saturday for the commercial port of La Rochelle, which they intend to block "symbolically"to denounce agro-industry practices.

Several injured

A chase then began between demonstrators and the police, with barricades, trash fires, damage, projectile throwing and tear gas grenades . According to an initial assessment from the La Rochelle public prosecutor's office around 2 p.m., a gendarme was injured by burn and five demonstrators, slightly injured, were treated.

According to the same source, several businesses were damaged or looted, bus shelters and advertising panels destroyed, a demonstrator entered a nursing home, before being arrested inside and placed in police custody.

A second procession, made up of 3,000 people, followed the coast from the city center to approach on foot, some in kayaks or inflatable boats, the agro-industrial terminal of the port of La Pallice, target of the organizers who claim more than 6,000 demonstrators in total.

This second day of mobilization aims to denounce the major players in the cereal sector, associated with the construction of contested water reserves and a " grabbing" of water by agro-industry. According to the La Rochelle public prosecutor's office, six people have been placed in police custody since the start of the day, which began with a brief incursion into the commercial port of demonstrators, calmly dislodged by the gendarmes at the end of the morning.

On Friday, a first demonstration – 3,800 people according to the police, 6,500 according to the organizers – aborted in Vienne when tear gas grenades thrown by the gendarmes set fire to a field of straw near the procession.

Environmental movements

These events take place as part of the "Water Village", organized until&# 39;on Sunday in Melle (Deux-Sèvres) by the collective "Bassines Non Merci", the environmental movements Les Uprisings of the Earth and Extinction Rebellion, the Solidaires trade union and the alter-globalization association Attac, with the participation of 120 activist structures.