After a first operation in October, the authorities carried out a new evacuation on Saturday "without incident" of the ZAD installed in Saïx (Tarn) by opponents of the A69 motorway project between Toulouse and Castres, according to the prefecture.
In total, eight people were arrested during the intervention on this ZAD known as Crémade, it is specified in a press release.
The groups of opponents on site denounced a “provocation” by the public authorities and announced their intention to “rebuild”.
The president of the Tarn departmental council, Christophe Ramond, welcomed “very good news” in a press release and welcomed the “determination of the State to see the A69 project through to completion”.
Green MPs called on Tuesday for the opening of a parliamentary commission of inquiry into this controversial project.
“An ecocide scandal”
Among them, MP Christine Arrighi, elected from Haute-Garonne, denounced on Tuesday on this occasion an “ecocidal scandal of a construction site which has no reason to exist, neither economic nor financial, and even less environmental”.
And the parliamentarian added: “350 hectares of arable, wet land and trees suffer from this situation, and over these 53 km, we already have a two-lane national road”.
This motorway project, denounced among others by environmental associations, must connect the Castres ring road to Verfeil, east of Toulouse, by 2025 and should extend over 53 km, on 2 x 2 lanes, including " 44 km of new route and 9 km of redeveloped sections”, according to the project concessionaire Atosca.
Read alsoA69 Toulouse-Castres: cost, trees cut, toll price… the 10 key figures of the criticized motorway
This project has given rise to multiple gatherings of elected officials and environmental activists in recent months.
The associations point out in particular the fact that the highway would extend over more than 300 hectares of agricultural land.
According to the Tarn prefecture, the “total area of the final area represents 420 ha, including 316 ha of agricultural land”.
Finally, the quantity of trees cut down to carry out this project is also worrying.
Questioned by Le Parisien, the Atosca director in charge of the project specified that “200 street trees, including large heritage plane trees, will indeed be cut down”.
“We will replant twice as many,” he assured.
A statement that struggles to reassure opponents of the project, who point out that century-old trees play a vital role in carbon sequestration.