In the midst of a historic drought, several thousand demonstrators intend to defy the ban on the prefecture of Deux-Sèvres on Saturday, October 29 to shout their opposition to the “basins” near the site of a new water reserve intended for agricultural irrigation. The collective “Bassines Non Merci”, which brings together environmental associations, trade unions and anti-capitalist groups opposed to this “grabbing of water” intended for “agro-industry”, announced the presence of 10,000 people. >> In the Deux-Sèvres, faced with the drought, storing water in “mega-basins” does not flow naturally The prefect of Deux-Sèvres Emmanuelle Dubée mentioned Friday around “5,000 “Demonstrators expected from 10 a.m. in this village of around 350 inhabitants, which has become the new epicenter of a conflict over the use of this resource which is becoming scarce with global warming. Earlier this week, she banned “any demonstration and crowd” around Sainte-Soline. The goal is to “limit” possible “acts of violence” and “make the whole site safer for farmers”, she justified on Friday. About 200 elected officials, lawyers or professors denounced a breach of “the fundamental freedom to demonstrate” in a column published Thursday evening by Liberation. Among the signatories, elected rebellious or environmentalists like Mathilde Panot, Clémentine Autain, Alexis Corbière or Yannick Jadot, announced on the spot on Saturday. The Sainte-Soline reserve is the second of 16 replacement reserves, at the heart of a project drawn up by a group of 400 farmers united in the Coop de l’eau, to “reduce water withdrawals by 70%”, in this region which still experiences irrigation restrictions after an extraordinary summer drought. These open-air craters, covered with a plastic tarpaulin, are filled by pumping water from surface groundwater in winter and can store up to 650,000 m3 (i.e. 260 Olympic swimming pools). This water is used for irrigation in the summer, when rainfall is less. Opponents denounce “megabasins” reserved for large export-oriented cereal farms and defend the implementation of other measures to better share and preserve water – agroecology, crop change, return of grasslands… Denis Mousseau, president of the FNSEA 79 which defends this storage project, recalled Thursday “the strong concern” of local farmers in the face of the call of organizations for “civil disobedience”.