Since Monday, the police have begun their operation to dislodge the “squirrels”, a nickname given to the activists perched in the trees on the Zad de Saïx (Tarn).
Several meters above the ground, they have set up their aerial camp for several days now. The activists, firmly opposed to the construction of the A69 motorway between Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) and Castres (Tarn), do not intend to review their position, judiciously chosen to avoid any felling of trees. Facing them, since Monday February 19 in the morning, law enforcement officers who are determined to dismantle the Zad de Saïx (Tarn). “No ZAD will be tolerated”, stormed Sunday afternoon the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin on violence on the part of those who seek to reconstitute a new ZAD on the site of the A69 works.
According to La Dépêche, around ten “squirrels” were counted Monday afternoon in different trees on the Cremade site. At the start of the evening, the regional daily reported that no demonstrator had been dislodged. However, a structure was able to be dismantled. Present on the scene, the prefect of Tarn, Michel Vilbois, summed up the scale of the task facing the gendarmes: “Get the eight people still present down safely.” He recognized however, to our colleagues at La Dépêche, “an operation that takes time, because we don’t take people by force. We are in a time of negotiation.” Tuesday afternoon, the local daily reported that one of the demonstrators had been forced to go down, bringing the number of “squirrels” still perched high to seven. While the operation could extend over the entire week, La Dépêche recalls that the last operation of this type lasted three days.
