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in too in the south of France violent
resistance to a dam being built in the s
Forest recently broke out to build the
dam machines authorized by the city's
General Council began clearing 41 Acres
of trees on the 1st of
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September the time we arrived eight
people had already been
arrested some of the activists had been
unfriendly towards the media reportedly
pting one journalist with
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stones
so we've come to too to the forest where
we've heard that around 100
environmental activists are essentially
occupying the place now as soon as we
got here we saw a load of activists in
masks they came and threw petrol on
these barricades that they've made set
them on fire um and have just gone off
so apparently the police are on their
way and in the last four days they've
been here quite a lot the riot police
and these activists have actually been
throwing Molotov cocktails at them
hurling stones at them and the police
have responded with tear gas um and
rubber bullet
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missiles police are just shooting all
these tear gas round
into the field it's dispersing it's
actually quite disgusting already we can
get through that though yeah let's
go so we've just tried to get past uh
this blockade where the activists are on
the other side but they've turned around
and said to us no no no no don't come
because there's booby traps which is you
know no good for the police who are just
over here um so we're going to try and
find another way through to meet the
activist um I guess for this Forest
somehow the groups fighting in the
forest were a mix of anarchists peaceful
environmentalists and general Nomads
who'd all teamed up to protect the trees
Jesus Christ they refer to the forest
now as the zad which translates roughly
as the place to
defend this is the machine that the
environmental activists are up in arms
about and they're doing this to make way
for a dam but the environmentalists are
really angry about that they say that
there's around 94 endangered species
here right in this Forest where we are
in the distance you can see clouds of
tear gas which is because some of the
environmentalists have actually climbed
the trees and are essentially living
inside the trees to stop this machine
uprooting them so the police are trying
to get rid of them now and it looks like
they probably just fired some kind of
tear gas into the air to I guess make
them fall out of the
tree the police were saying to us
earlier that we need to get out of here
for our own safety because there are gas
bombs um and that you know they're
trying to CL some of these activists as
terrorists which seemed a little bit
over the top but as we've come to this
barricade here there is literally a gas
bomb wired up perfectly to the barricade
so it's wired around here Jesus look at
that it looks to me like they're
preparing for war with the police we
just
found all of these uh Molotov cocktails
which seem to be pretty ready to
go how would you describe yourselves I
mean the police down there were saying
oh you know some of these people are
they're acting like eot terrorists some
say militants I mean what do you
consider yourselves
as
we've seen what looks like a gas bomb
there like what's all that about how did
that come about who put that up it's uh
the idea is that uh uh if if cops think
it's a real bomb uh they they they
should uh explore Al boms and with a
special team and they can lost an half
day it take a long time for them yeah
it's it's the only Ida are any of them
real um I don't know really I don't know
I I don't think so maybe maybe one but
very little just to say it's not all
freaks after about an hour of running
around the activist fighting with the
police the police chasing them through
the woods things have died down a little
bit but in the distance you can hear
this massive machine just mowing down
trees which is essentially what the
activists are fighting against which is
why they're picking up rocks and throw
Molotov cocktails um but at the same
time it's quite weird because over here
you've got like a really nice Camp it's
almost like some kind of hippie
commune so maybe you could explain to me
what's been going on here with the
police and you
guys
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and why why are you guys here what is it
you want to achieve with this
protest
what do you think is going to happen
next
so we're just following the uh activists
now and they're kind of mobilizing in
teams all around the forest trying to
stop the police from coming
through
so the activists are mobilizing right
now we just seen lot of people come out
the bush apparently the police coming
from all sides um so I guess they're
preparing to fight back at the
moment
so theice just brought bag of rocks now
everybody's mobilizing moving further
into the forest you can literally see
the police maybe 10 yards away and it
looks like he's going to kick off
soon police so the police are moving
forward now everybody's running
off
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so we're back at Lazard this morning and
the first thing we've noticed is that
overnight the activists have dug out a
trench in the road and placed spokes all
through there which will stop the police
if the police come through here this
morning which we're certain they will do
and move the barricade they'll drive
down here and all their tires will burst
as they're trying to get past all the
trees that being cut down overnight
which ironically seems to work to the
activist Advantage because they can pile
these up make barricades set them on
fire and try and mess with the
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business
what what's going to happen here today
if the police trying to evict this come
are you going to
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fight
so where we're standing right now one
week ago there was a whole Forest here
like there is in the distance these
machines have been coming in pulling out
the trees um you know they want to make
a dam but these guys are really angry
about that and now people are pushing
through to the front the police has sto
people moving through and we've got
people climbing the trees here I guess
they're hoping that if they're in the
trees the machines can't come and chop
them down but the way they've been
moving at the moment they might just do
that to be
honest tell me why why are you so upset
about all this at the
moment
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for
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so things are getting really tense now
the helicopter is hovering all around
this site the police are just in the
forest there they're looking to push
through to move everybody off of here
they've apparently got a court order
that they're now allowed to proceed and
evacuate you got people masking up there
are gas canisters over there I've seen
bottles exchange hands police hiding in
the woods all different directions um
and up that way is where we saw the more
militant people yesterday where we saw
the gas canister bombs and the
barricades so we're just sneaking around
through the forest we can hear
flashbangs going off at the main Camp as
we try to get through two police will
come
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out to be
fair he did have a pet on him which I
saw earlier a weapon which was like a
spike um with some petrol on the end of
it so he's quite
drunk this got to be one of the weirdest
protest I've ever seen in my life you've
got Molotov cocktails improvised gas
canister bombs people saying they're
clown activists making guys fronting the
police and the Black Block running
around in the forest with Bal clavas on
attacking the police it's so
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strange
despite their best efforts the activists
were fighting a losing battle with
hundreds of trees torn down it looked as
if little could be done to stop the
machines destroying the
wildlife in a similar situation at
notredam in
2013 many of these same groups stopped
an airport being built in the
countryside through their direct action
but Victory here looks a long way off
for those fighting in the
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forest
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