The gendarmes on Friday dispersed demonstrators using tear gas who had come to try to supply opponents of the A69 motorway who were camping in trees in Saïx, in Tarn, noted an AFP photographer.
Dozens of demonstrators, with a dozen shopping bags with food, hygiene products and water filtration systems, attempted to advance towards the trees, but were refused access by the police.
“We have a duty to give food and drink to people who have been deprived of it for two weeks,” one of these opponents of the Toulouse Castres motorway project told the police.
After some shoving, the gendarmes used tear gas.
Supplies requested by the UN
The UN special rapporteur on the protection of environmental defenders Michel Forst notably asked the French authorities on Thursday for “authorization without delay and without hindrance for the supply of food and drinking water” to these activists.
Michel Forst, who visited Tarn on February 22 and 23, also requested "an investigation and sanctions for acts of sleep deprivation, burning of materials, lighting of fires and dumping of products a priori inflammable by the police, who may have endangered the lives” of these activists, called “squirrels”, who camp in trees to block the construction site of the future highway.
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The prefect of Tarn, for his part, affirmed having given Michel Forst "all the explanations on the intervention of the police in Saïx", which "formally deny the allegations that he reports", regretting "that he took no account of it.
Opponents of the A69 urgently appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in order to put an end to “the methods” of the French authorities against the demonstrators.
The Court has sent questions to the French government and will rule on this request on Monday, a source at the ECHR said on Friday.