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News > World

France Accused of COP21 Hypocrisy over Airport Evictions

  • Despite years of strong opposition from environment groups and local residents, the construction works will finally start soon.

    Despite years of strong opposition from environment groups and local residents, the construction works will finally start soon. | Photo: AFP

Published 25 January 2016
Opinion

The airport is threatening the biodiversity of the whole region, environmentalists have warned.

A court in Nantes issued an eviction notice for the last residents living on the construction site of the controversial airport project in Notre Dame Des Landes in the northwest of France Monday.

French-based construction company Vinci was granted permission to build the airport in 2008 following controversies surrounding the project dating back more than 40 years.

Four farmers and 11 families are being evicted from the area, as the French state failed to reach a mutual agreement with those forced from their land.

The project has faced opposition for years and President Francois Hollande, when still a presidential candidate, promised to put a moratorium on the construction until all legal means were exhausted.

RELATED: Paris COP21: Police Use State of Emergency to Target Activists

However, despite ongoing legal procedures at the European level, Judge Pierre Gramaize ordered the immediate eviction of three families and a two-month delay on eight others.

While Vinci is demanding financial compensation of up to 1,000 euros (US$1,085) per farmer per day against those refusing to vacate the land, a French court ruled the measure would be “disproportionate” considering the farmers' “modest revenues.”

The families' lawyers have also asked the court to examine whether there are serious grounds for questioning the eviction's constitutionality, which they argue could contradict the right to housing inscribed in the French Constitution. The judge denied the request.

Leader of the Environmentalist Party (EE-LV) in France Emmanuelle Cosse has urged the government to maintain coherence and put a stop the project due to the ongoing legal procedures at the European level.

“I can't accept the fact that France, which has explained to all the world’s countries that we have to address climate change during the U.N. conference (COP21), allows a project destroying nature without even responding to economic needs and allowing speculation in land on the airport site.”

She recalled that in the construction site of Sivens on the River Tarn, south of France, “we had to wait for one victim before authorities recognized the project of the dam was wrong.”

Cosse was referring to the events of Oct. 26, 2014, when a 21-year-old botanist and environmental activist was killed by a military grenade during brutal police repression against protesters organizing against the project.

RELATED: France: Probe on Police Killing of Activist Stalls Amid Scandal

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