"Thousands of people" had "simply come to wage war" in Sainte-Soline, said Thursday Emmanuel Macron traveling to the Hautes-Alpes to present a plan to improve water management.
"You have thousands of people who had simply come to wage war. This is unacceptable," said the head of state as the banned demonstration on Saturday against the mega-basin of Sainte-Soline (Deux- Sèvres), was punctuated by very violent clashes between activists and the police with two demonstrators still in a coma.
The president denounced "unacceptable scenes of violence" on the side of the demonstrators. "In some people a form of habit of violence sets in, it must be fought with great firmness", he commented, asking "all the republican political forces to be perfectly clear on this subject".
From 6,000 to 8,000 people according to the authorities, 30,000 according to the organizers, demonstrated on Saturday.
In two reports, the prefecture and the gendarmerie defend a targeted and proportionate response to 800 to 1,000 "radical" demonstrators.
The League for Human Rights denounces on the contrary "immoderate use" of force on all the demonstrators, as soon as they approach the water reserve.
The organizers counted 200 wounded, including at least one blind person in addition to the two demonstrators in a coma.
The families of the two men filed a complaint in particular for "attempted murder".
03/30/2023 17:33:24 - Savines-le-Lac (France) (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
