While the sun painfully tries to break through the gray clouds of this winter morning, trenches, earthworks and backhoe loaders bear witness to the progress of the construction site along the N126 between Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) and Castres (Tarn).
However, on the Zad de la Crem'Arbre, in Saïx, in Tarn, environmental activists are still mobilized to oppose the A69 motorway project.
After several days of tension and the dismantling of the area to be defended, the police and in particular the National Mobility Support Unit (Cnamo), undertook on Monday February 19 to dislodge the activists perched in trees, the “squirrels”.
According to the prefecture, there were still 8 of them on Tuesday, February 20 in the morning, when the chainsaws were activated.
“If there is an accident, it will not be our responsibility”
A train passing nearby honks its horn in support of the activists present, including Thomas Brail, who repeats over and over that “the cutting is illegal” in his megaphone before the end of the intervention around noon. “It’s an area at stake strong environmental, which was downgraded without even the arrival of an ecologist or Dreal,” he assures.
Physically marked by the months of struggle and his hunger strike, this media activist remains determined.
“We are not dejected, the media continue to follow the mobilization.
But I'm afraid it will end badly.
If there is an accident, it will not be our responsibility,” he says.
Read alsoA69 Toulouse-Castres: cost, trees cut, toll price… the 10 key figures of the criticized motorway
He also filed a complaint against X at the Toulouse judicial court for endangering the lives of others.
The commission of inquiry at the National Assembly into the legal and financial arrangement of the A69, chaired by the deputy for Tarn Jean Terlier, defender of the project, is due to begin on February 27.
In the meantime, work has resumed and pickets have been placed along the highway route.