“We demonstrated passively, which ended with five arrests”: a gathering of the Peasant Confederation in Saint-Pons-de-Thomières

Les membres de la Confédération paysanne sont venus soutenir leurs militants. – Midi Libre

Les membres de la Confédération paysanne sont venus soutenir leurs militants. Midi Libre

Une trentaine de personnes a manifesté à proximité de la gendarmerie de Saint-Pons-de-Thomières, ce vendredi 24 janvier, à l’appel de la Confédération paysanne.

At the call of the Confédération Paysanne, some thirty people gathered this Friday, January 24, late in the morning, in front of the high school, symbolically close to the Saint-Pons-de-Thomières gendarmerie, in support of the activists of this agricultural union, placed under judicial supervision and called to court on February 4. The courts are accusing them of an action carried out on December 5 at the Bourse Européenne de Commerce at the Grand Palais in Paris to denounce “free trade profiteers and predators of peasant income as well as to defend the union's freedom to demonstrate.”

“Double standards”

Speeches were made, including that of the departmental leader Jean Émile Sanchez to say: “Once again we see the double standards between the actions that the FNSEA and the Rural Coordination can carry out, which are of a different nature than us, since in December, we (Editor's note: Peasant Confederation) demonstrated passively in Paris, without violence or damage, and the CRS and the BRAV were sent to them. This ended with five arrests, 36 hours in police custody, and two defendants who will appear in court with charges of violence against persons responsible for public order and attempted and entry into a public place.”
Secured by the gendarmerie, the municipal police and the rural guard, a procession then formed to go to the gendarmerie, located a few steps away, where the signing of a judicial control was simulated before a dissolution of the gathering.

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