In the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, two environmental activists sentenced to suspended fines

The two women were also fined 120 euros for unauthorized entry into another person's property, 5.000 euros for the company's legal fees and 3 months' driving license suspension.

The two women, a sixty-year-old and a seventy-year-old, were arrested at the beginning of October, lying across a path leading to the construction site of the Canadian company Boralex in Cruis, on the Lure mountain.

“On the conviction for the offense of obstruction, the feeling is the biggest surprise, (...) it is something that we do not welcome,” explained to AFP Me Nino Arnaud , lawyer for the two activists, indicating that he planned to appeal.

"In this specific case, by local decision of the town hall, the roads were closed to public traffic. So, we succeeded in convicting people for blocking public access to a road whose public access was proscribed,” continued Me Arnaud.

The Boralex company, for its part, “welcomed with satisfaction” the court’s decision. Boralex "would like to point out that the Cruis construction site is not being carried out in disregard of the ecological considerations of the site on which it is located", indicated the company in a message to AFP.

"It is not a question here of denying the impacts of the project - incidentally inherent to all human activity - but of insisting on the very strict supervision implemented in order to limit the environmental footprint of the project", stated in particular Boralex.

The Digne-les-Bains public prosecutor's office requested a suspended fine of 1.000 euros during a hearing which lasted around 5 hours in December.

"This decision can only lead Sylvie and Claudine to appeal. In essence, this judgment is + The sentinels are enough! Let private interests triumph +", explained to AFP Pierrot Pantel, ecological engineer and coordinator of environmental struggles, denouncing “a gag procedure”.

Environmental defenders denounce a construction site which has already led to the felling of hundreds of trees at the gates of the Lubéron Regional Natural Park.

Boralex, which won the call for tenders for this photovoltaic power plant in 2009, is defending a project which will "revalue unfertile municipal plots" since a fire in 2004. The company aims to install 20.000 panels on 17 hectares in 2024.

For her, the opponents are targeting the wrong target by attacking a renewable energy producer.