Territorial struggles challenging the State, between protest and co-management : The case of the struggle against the Testet dam in Sivens

Résumé 0

Since territorial struggles cannot help but challenge the State, whether it promotes or supports development plans for the territory at issue, opponents tend to be divided between dissenters and co-managers, with unstable relations between them. Dissenters radically reject these projects and the “world that goes with them,” a destructive capitalist system supported by the State. Co-managers challenge the detail of projects in the spirit of offering a second opinion, thus making them inclined to cooperate with the powers at be. In the case of the struggle against the Testet dam at Sivens (Tarn), dissenters and co-managers at first succeeded in forming a common front against resolute authorities, which was a precondition to push them back. Cornered as they were, authorities played the strategy of raising tension to the point of murder. In order to regain control of a situation that had got out of hand, they then implemented a double strategy: the carrot of participative democracy for co-managers, thus allowing their separation from other opponents, and the stick of fascistic militia against dissenters.