Around 8.30 a.m., this group managed to enter the tarmac at Biarritz airport before being dislodged by the police and placed in police custody for «unauthorized entry into the airside area of an airport «.
About 1,700 people according to the organizers, 950 according to the prefecture, were distributed on Saturday over ten blocking points of traffic axes, on the Basque coast and inland.
These actions of «civil disobedience» aim to draw attention to the fate of two Basque prisoners in their seventies, former members of ETA imprisoned for 32 years, Jakes Esnal and Ion Parot.
They allow «to put the subject on the table and to have a wider echo, further reinforced by the ban by the prefecture yesterday (Friday)», estimated Mathieu Boloquy, of the movement for the defense of the rights of Basque prisoners Bake Bidea .
In Biarritz, around noon, around sixty activists blocked the boulevard which connects the motorway, train station and airport. After installing tires and wooden pallets across the road, the demonstrators posted themselves behind a banner displaying the messages «Stop state revenge» and «32 years in prison, that’s enough!».
Police personnel are present, with reinforcements from the Spanish National Police.
The prefecture indicated at midday that detour routes via secondary axes had been put in place and that road, motorway and air traffic was «fluid».
According to Bake Bidea, five militants chained themselves in the morning to the railway tracks in Boucau, north of Bayonne. The prefecture announced «an ongoing police intervention».
Rail traffic was interrupted around 11 a.m. in both directions, between Bayonne and Saint-Vincent-de-Tyrosse (Landes), due to «people on the track», SNCF explained to AFP.
To ban these actions long planned by the activists, the prefect Eric Spitz explained on Friday that they posed «a serious risk to the safety and health of people», residents and tourists, on this day of classified crossover. red by Bison Futé.
The organizers maintained their actions by ensuring that they had «taken all the necessary measures to guarantee the safety of people».