At least 4,000 people have already gathered in south-west France, at the ‘Water Village’ encampment in the town of Melle, to protest this weekend against méga-bassines, a controversial planned network of giant underwater storage areas that farmers can use for irrigation in the event of a drought.

Demonstrations against méga-bassines have been going on for over two years in France, and some have involved violent clashes with police, leading to two protesters being severely injured in March 2023.

The protests are set to take place on Friday, at Saint-Sauvant in the Vienne département, at the site of a future méga-bassine, despite an announcement by local authorities that ‘all undeclared demonstrations in and around the town had been banned.’

The second protest is scheduled for Saturday, at the port of La Rochelle, in Charente-Maritime.

According to a press release by the one of the participating collectives, Bassines Non Merci, they hope to see 10,000 people participate.

There have also been calls by the farmers’ union, Coordination rurale, for counter-demonstrations on Friday.

In response, more than 3,000 gendarmes and police officers have been mobilised.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told the French press he feared there could be ‘acts of serious violence’, noting that security forces have identified 30 protesters as ‘Fiché S’ (on a state security watchlist).

READ MORE: Méga-bassines: Why has a dispute over irrigation in French farmland turned violent?

However, unions and organisations heading up the protests have disputed these claims. One of the organisers, Soulèvements de la Terre, specified on their website that their goal “is not to target individual farmers and their farms”. 

Why the controversy?

The project, backed by around 400 local farmers, is controversial because environmentalists say the mega-basins damage valuable wetland areas – the west of France has several wetland areas that shelter a wide variety of wildlife and the area is also known for salt marshes that produce a highly prized fleur de sel.

The protesters also say that the water tanks drain water from natural groundwater supplies and therefore make droughts worse for local residents and smaller farmers – essentially they see the basins as a ‘water theft’ from locals by big agri-businesses. 

The first major protests occurred in October 2022, which saw between 4,000 and 7,000 demonstrators gather in Sainte-Soline (the sight of the would-be mega-basins) and 1,500 police.

Molotov cocktails were thrown and more than 60 police officers injured in a three-day series of clashes.