Sainte-Soline, symbol of the exacerbation of development conflicts

Mobilization for the Vanoise park, Larzac struggle, Plogoff, "summer camps" in Bure, demonstration against the Sivens dam or occupation of Notre-Dame-des-Landes... "France has a long tradition of conflicts over development issues", recognizes Xavier Desjardins, professor of urban planning at Sorbonne University. This is justified according to him from an activist point of view, "because it is easier to obtain the abandonment of a power plant project than a change of global system".

At the end of the 2000s, the first ZAD (Zone to Defend) marked a turning point in relocating struggles in the face of the lack of effect of large anti-globalization rallies on public policies.

“Today the protest takes tactically different forms and is becoming more radical,” observes Philippe Subra, geographer and professor emeritus at the French Institute of Geopolitics.

It is no longer a question of defending a site that one occupies but of occupying a site defended by the forces of order. Motorway bypasses, factory farms, quarries, LGV lines... Through a punctual and massive mobilization, the opponents are aiming for the same result as by occupying a ZAD for years.

In Sainte-Soline, the mobilization on March 25 against a water reservoir revealed the decisive role of the Earth Uprisings (SLT) in an event which brought together 6 to 8.000 demonstrators according to the authorities, 30.000 according to the organizers.

Created in 2021 in the ZAD of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, SLT defines itself as a "broad coalition" of associations, NGOs, peasant unions... "It is the attempt to build a network of local struggles" for "establish a real balance of power in order to wrest the land from industrial and commercial ravages", explains its website.

"Ecological emergency"

"SLT extends the structuring started in the 2010s on a national scale by the movement + against unnecessary and imposed major projects + (GPII)", observes Jean-Michel Fourniau, director of research emeritus at Gustave Eiffel University.

"The organization, which is very decentralized, chooses a few fights, gives them great media resonance and then moves on to new fights linked to the ecological emergency, a new theme", he continues.

For the government, in Sainte-Soline, a milestone has been reached. Denouncing "an unprecedented surge on the part of armed and violent individuals" close to the ultra-left, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin launched a dissolution procedure against SLT.

For SLT, "the political imperative" is to obtain "the stopping of construction sites", which requires "the collective disarmament of infrastructures". A claimed "sabotage".

According to Gérald Darmanin, the intelligence services record 42 projects likely to "give rise to extremely violent disputes", including the motorway linking Toulouse and Castres.

"The level of violence is much higher on both sides," observes geographer Philippe Subra.

Force transition

In particular, a greater permeability between supporters of violent action and peaceful opponents tempted to consider confrontation as the only way to be heard.

Another factor of mobilization, the feeling of a passage in force of the projects, for lack of consultation. "While the rights of participation have progressed in France since the 1990s, several laws have regressed these rights since 2017", regrets Jean-Michel Fourniau.

According to him, many major projects thus escape today from prior consultation, and new laws could "evacuate + green + infrastructures from the public debate in order to go faster".

In addition, certain issues such as water "are managed by technical unions, far from the gaze of citizens, without ever building a debate on the sharing of the resource", observes Xavier Desjardins.

So much so that some development projects that were once taken for granted now seem obsolete.

"We are in the process of leaving a culture of development which consisted of modernizing and equipping the territory, to a culture of + management + where the objectives of preserving landscapes, ecosystems and the climate will weigh much more heavily", foresees M Subra.