Violent clashes in Brittany during a protest against the environmental tax

A demonstrator who participated in the action against an environmental tax portico had his hand torn off and other protesters were injured .

Protest in Britain against the environmental tax gantry bridge Buis , in Finistère , on 26 October 2013. ( PhotoPQR / WEST FRANCE )
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A protester who attended Saturday, October 26 action against the environmental tax portico of Pont-de -Buis (Finistère) had his hand torn off and other protesters were also injured, do we then learned from the firefighters as clashes continue on site.

The man 's hand was torn off during scenes that resemble the guerrillas around the gantry always protected by riot police with projectiles thrown on one side and replicas to pepper spray the other.

The prefecture of Finistère speak , for its part , two injured the demonstrators without giving further details.

Clashes against about a thousand protesters against the new tax for trucks must be in place by 1 January 2014, and about 150 riot police trying to protect the portal placed on the RN165 , the last of the three settled in Brittany still in working condition.

Inherited the Grenelle environment under the five year term of Nicolas Sarkozy , the environmental tax is a levy on transport over 3.5 tons. That levy heavy weight should be applied to nearly 800,000 trucks, including 600,000 French , operating on 12,000 km of highways and 2,000 km of county roads of the road network " not granted " , so off highways .

Its purpose is to finance the wear of road infrastructure by carriers and to encourage shippers to favor more environmentally friendly means of transport of the environment, such as railways , canals or sea routes .

Jets tires

Police said about 250 trucks have joined the site with as tractors and trailers tires, cauliflower and straw bales .

The event is held at the call of the "collective employment in Britain " , among which are employees of firms in difficulty as Gad SAS or farmers.

They invested the RN 165 , blocked to traffic between Brest and Quimper since early morning and went to the porch of Pont-de -Buis where about 150 men waiting forces entrenched behind barriers .

The tension only grows until the demonstrators , some of whom were masked , do not launch the attack after 14 hours in jets reinforcement of tires, causing a replica with a lot of tear gas . The scene was quickly buried in the tire smoke and the smoke bombs , while agricultural vehicles heading towards the dam forces , tearing cross the expressway .

Protesters donned red caps , 900 in all, distributed by the organizers, the symbol of the anti-tax revolution in Britain in the seventeenth century, under the Old Regime.

They also had some covered their plates stickers reproducing the plate of the presidential car ( Ds5 ) Francois Hollande , CB- 455- VH , but with the number of the department of Finistère , 29 , according to organizers.

" Here lies the eco-tax "

Another event took place on Saturday against a green tax portal , this time in the Morbihan. A hundred protesters came with forty vehicles, agricultural machinery , and thirty trucks, organized a filter dam under the portico of St. Allouestre (Morbihan) , the RN24 with leafleting and Breton products . The demonstration ended smoothly to 13 hours , according to police.

In the night from Friday to Saturday farmers with 14 tractors with trailers have also taken action punch Morlaix ( Finistère) by pouring around midnight before the Tax pallets, cauliflower and manure according to a police source . Farmers wrote on the ground " Here lies the eco-tax ."

These actions are growing and becoming more tense as the government remains adamant on the date of implementation of the environmental tax on 1 January 2014 , however ensuring the UK a 50% reduction due to its distance from the rest of Europe.

The Bretons " headwind against environmental tax "

A meeting Friday at Rennes Prefecture region was not enough to ease tensions. The collective Breton economic actors , which claims to represent 150,000 businesses, boycotted the meeting, demanding prior to any discussion the indefinite postponement of the eco-tax .

The regional prefect Patrick Strzoda has told him this opportunity appraisals are underway to include assessing the real impact of the environmental tax on business costs, but he said that " for the moment the problems mentioned can find a solution in the implementation of the environmental tax on 1 January . "

According to an Ifop poll published Sunday in West France Bretons are 74% " headwind against green tax " , mainly those of Morbihan (82%) and Finistère ( 81%).

"I find these outrageous taxes and I understand very well that we can protest against them," she said on Saturday morning, the president of the National Front ( FN) , Marine Le Pen , during a trip to Brittany , Fougeres ( Ille- et-Vilaine) .