Environmental activists clashed with police in the western French port city of La Rochelle on Saturday, AFP journalists saw, as environmentalists and small farmers mobilized against the huge irrigation reservoirs under construction.
A 2,000-strong march, one of two through the city, was turned back and broken up around 2:00 p.m. (12:00 GMT) after being attacked by police.
Fighting broke out around barricades and burning garbage bins, with some throwing projectiles and police firing tear gas canisters.
“We were in the demo, they started blocking front and back. They isolated us to one side to attack everyone else,” said Lilia, a 25-year-old who did not want to give her middle name.
A police source told AFP that about 400 participants in the march were so-called “black blocs”, radical leftists.
According to prosecutors in La Rochelle, one policewoman suffered burns and five slightly injured protesters received medical treatment.
Several shops were damaged or looted, as well as bus shelters and billboards.
The second, more peaceful march, attended by about 3,000 people, including some families, moved from the city centre to the commercial port.
Some used kayaks or inflatable boats to approach the agricultural export terminal La Pallice, which had been designated by the organisers as a target for the demonstrations.
At 3pm, about 3,500 people from the two marches were still on the coast, a police source said.
Police had earlier on Saturday used tear gas to disperse about 200 people who had entered the terminal at dawn, including farmers with vintage tractors.
The confrontation was largely peaceful.
– Fear of water –
The protests in the city on France’s Atlantic coast were aimed at showing that new “reservoirs are not built to grow food locally, but to feed international markets,” said Julien Le Guet, a spokesman for the “Reservoirs, No Thanks” movement.
Activists say the reservoirs, which are filled with groundwater in winter for summer irrigation, only benefit large farmers at the expense of smaller farms and the environment.
Dozens are already being built in western France, and those interested say that without these projects, farms are at risk of disappearing due to the ongoing drought.
Last year in Sainte-Soline, some 90 kilometres inland from La Rochelle, massive clashes between thousands of protesters and police left two demonstrators in a coma and 30 police officers injured.
Clashes broke out again on Saturday as protesters returned from the agricultural port to the centre of La Rochelle. Some fired fireworks at police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons.
“Cease fire, there are children running around,” Le Guet shouted.
“Don’t make the same mistake as in Sainte-Soline”.
The fear of clashes was high all week. More than 3,000 police officers were deployed around a protest camp of the “Water Village” type in Melle, a few kilometers from Sainte-Soline. The authorities warned of the risk of “major violence”.
The prefecture wanted to ban demonstrations in the popular summer tourist destination of La Rochelle, but organisers went ahead.
“On Saturdays, it was not our intention to clash with the police, but often it is the police who clash with us,” said Juliette Riviere, an SLT member.
Prosecutors said six people were in custody as of Saturday afternoon.
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