Thousands protested in France on Saturday against the construction of a high speed rail link between Lyon, in the southeast of the country, and Turin in Italy, leading to clashes with police.
(Bloomberg) — Thousands protested in France on Saturday against the construction of a high speed rail link between Lyon, in the southeast of the country, and Turin in Italy, leading to clashes with police.
About 4,000 protesters gathered to oppose the project on environmental grounds, according to the Earth’s Uprisings, one of the organizers, while 2,000 police officers were present said an Interior Ministry spokesperson.
Television images showed some of the protesters throwing stones at police, who used tear gas to disperse the crowds in La Chapelle, a town of the Maurienne valley, in the French Alps.
Co-financed by Italy, France and the European Union, the Lyon-Turin rail-link has been under development for over 30 years. The project will allow high speed traffic of goods and people between the two countries and aims to ease truck traffic on nearby roads and lessen pollution.
With an increasing €26 billion ($28.4 billion) cost, the benefits and impact of the project have been challenged over the years. The construction of the tunnel “will destroy more than 1,000 hectares of arable land and drain some 15 springs,” the ecologist mayor of Grenoble, Eric Piolle, said on BFM TV Saturday.
“This project is a productivist decoy,” Piolle said. An existing rail line is sufficient to clear the roads of trucks, he said. “There are only 25 trains a day on this line, we could add 100 more.”
The protest is due to last all weekend and continues a series of tense mobilizations across France by environmental campaigners, while the country also saw months of protests against an unpopular reform of the pension system.
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