2023-10-12 06:30:14
Opposition to the A69 motorway project which will link Toulouse and Castres is growing. 1,598 scientists publish an open letter in L’Obs intended for Emmanuel Macron. They demand that the work be stopped.
With its 53 km, the motorway project linking Toulouse to Castres (A69) aims, according to local elected officials, to “open up” the south of the Tarn. The Atosca concessionaire was designated in April 2022, and work began in March 2023. Thomas Brail, founder and co-president of the National Tree Surveillance Group, has become the symbol of opposition to the project. On hunger strike for 39 days, he began a thirst strike on Monday, October 9 with two other opponents of the project. He was hospitalized this Tuesday, October 10 after feeling unwell.
It’s not just activists who oppose the project. 1,598 scientists published on October 4 in L’Obs an open letter intended for Emmanuel Macron, to request a stop to the work. Among them, several authors from the IPCC, members of the High Council for Climate and the Academy of Sciences, including Valérie Masson-Delmotte (see the full list of signatories). This open letter was written at the initiative of the Scientifiques en rebellion collective.
Sobriety makes the A69 motorway useless
As part of the government’s ecological planning, scientists consider that “this project keeps France on a trajectory incompatible with the ecological transition as enshrined in the law”. “The A69 is one of those projects that must be abandoned”they assure. “Neither the intensity of traffic nor the time savings envisaged on the Toulouse-Castres route justify the construction of a motorway”they continue.
Rather than building a new highway, scientists are calling on the government to limit the maximum speed on motorways to 110 km/h, as proposed by the Citizens’ Climate Convention. This measure of sobriety “would de facto lose the time saving benefit of the A69”. And it would save 6% of the total fuel consumption of cars, the négaWatt association calculated in September 2022. This measure would constitute by far the most effective sobriety measure for transport.
Instead of advocating the continuity of the individual car model, even electric, the forum reminds us that“we must move towards a reduction in traffic and distances traveled by private car”. In addition, scientists emphasize that this project is “socially unjust”since it would be the second most expensive motorway in France (0.18 €/km).
Finally, biodiversity has a stake in this matter. Around ten century-old plane trees were cut down in September along the highway route. The forum ensures that “centenary trees are not replaceable”. And it is not Emmanuel Macron’s symbolic project to plant 1 billion trees that will compensate them.
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