FRANCE 3 – MONDAY DECEMBER 5 AT 11.15 P.M. – DOCUMENTARY
In the image, the green of the meadows, the trees and the water of the canals occupies all the space. In the ear, a sax accompanies the song of the birds and the noise of the “pigouille” – a long stick with three spades, which dips at regular intervals to move the boat forward. At the manoeuvre, like a seated gondolier, Julien, quadra with the look of a child, has a face that lights up in front of… the moult of a young dragonfly: “A live emergence, friends! »
Behind this simplicity, director Fabien Mazzocco pulls off a tour de force: in a few shots, viewers are won over and won over to the cause, even if they don’t know what cause it is. It is indeed necessary to wait twenty minutes so that the word “basin” is pronounced. Time for Julien to present his ” little piece of heaven “, placed on three departments (Charente-Maritime, Vendée, Deux-Sèvres), a symbol of nature shaped by man, which has become a “little Venice” for one and a half million tourists a year.
Julien, like all the inhabitants of the Poitevin marshes, adapted: he created La Frênaie, a place to live that welcomes summer visitors in yurts. Among his friends, Nicolas and Jean-François study dragonflies, a “bio-indicator” species with poetic names – blue-eyed naiads, damselflies… And Tony presents his rooster “who does nothing”its cows in the meadow and its heritage discovery activities – “basically, boat trips”.
Intensive cereal cultivation
A success. Yet Tony is going to leave, because he can’t bear to see anymore ” The plain ” nibble the swamp. The plain is the intensive cereal crop, which extends, consumes a lot of pesticides, oil and especially water. Hence the construction of the now famous basins.
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Archives show Julien in 2008, already opposing the digging of six test basins – in total media indifference. The film takes the time to calmly explain the water retention project, which had everything to seduce: pumping in the winter to irrigate in the summer, all financed at 70% by the State. Except it doesn’t work.
Thirteen years and forty basins later (the documentary was shot in 2021), the marsh still lacks water. The cameras filmed the reduced winter floods and the dry rivers in the summer. The elders speak: “I’m not a hydrologist, but I’ve been an attentive observer for fifty years, that’s something! », said one of them. Despite everything, a new project of sixteen basins is presented, with the same promises.
But today, Julien is no longer alone. Member of the Bassines non merci collective, he participates in good-natured demonstrations, with fanfare and slogan – «No Bassaran!». Joined by reinforcements, there were hundreds of them to converge, in the fall of 2021, on the construction site of the SEV 17 basin, south of the Bourdet bog. But, faced with those responsible, Julien’s gaze hardened: “If work resumes, expect new actions! »
A year later, the situation got worse. The term “mega-basin” appeared. Five people have just been tried in Niort after demonstrations in Sainte-Soline (Two Sevres). As for Julien, he surely still walks with Henriette, his sow kept on a leash.
Julien, the marsh and the dragonfly, by Fabien Mazzocco (Fr., 2021, 52 min). In replay on France.tv until March 30, 2023.