Vecqueville (Haute-Marne), north-eastern France, sabotage against an industrial foundry collaborating with Cigéo

 sabotage against an industrial foundry collaborating with Cigéo

The industrial forge cut off from the power grid! No nuclear revival without Cigéo, no Cigéo without the collaborators!

(Indymedia Lille, March 11, 2024)

“Identify the collaborators of the nuclear disaster and attack them” reads a letter claiming responsibility for the arson attack on the vehicle of the head of a local architecture firm in Commercy in September 2022. The letter continues: “Our direct intervention should be read as a warning to local and regional construction companies, security firms, environmental monitoring institutes and so on. Those who think they can make a profit from nuclear devastation and the militarization of the territory by CIGEO will end up paying dearly for it!”

It was with these words in our hearts and a lot of anger in our stomachs that in the early hours of March 11 we paid a visit – on the 13th anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster – to another regional profiteer of the nuclear mafia. This time, it wasn’t a small SME that was targeted, but the FERRY CAPITAIN industrial foundry in Vequeville – a company with over 300 employees near Joinville. Our aim was to obtain a total shutdown of the electricity supply to the four industrial complexes, bringing production to a halt (at least for a while).

To do this, we located the main power lines supplying the site from various directions. Unfortunately, of the four identified, we were only able to short-circuit three of them using incendiary devices. In addition to the direct damage and the expected loss of production, we hope that even if the power cut is not total, it will cause further secondary damage to the site’s machinery (some of which has to operate 24 hours a day).

We have not been able to completely rule out the possibility of secondary effects on the power supply to some private homes. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Why FERRY CAPITAIN? The partnership between FERRY CAPITAIN and ANDRA made us choose this target. But the company’s activities could just as easily have led us to make the same choice. Historically founded in 1831, this simple foundry stood out from the crowd in the 1900s by specializing in the casting and machining of industrial parts. FERRY CAPITAIN went on to expand its scope and its presence on the world market, by expanding into the less virtuous sectors: mining, cement works, manufacture of tunnel boring machines, aeronautical and aerospace parts, partnership with Électricité de France for gas, steam and hydroelectric power generators in recent decades.

Over the past 185 years, FERRY CAPITAIN has made a major contribution to the ecological and social disaster by making it possible to extract and exploit subsoil raw materials with its custom-built machines, parts and tools. Awarded the “France Relance” prize by the current government, the company is now “proud to be a laureate of the French industry revival plan”. The energy transition opens the door to a juicy, abundant market: even more mineral extraction and the revival of nuclear power to boot! FERRY CAPITAIN manufactures the tools of eternal devastation made in France.

What does this have to do with CIGÉO? Let’s go back in time: in November 2023, Patrice Torres, ANDRA’s General Manager for the Meuse and Haute-Marne regions, publicly announced a new 20-month phase in the implementation of CIGÉO, starting in early 2024. This phase includes the expropriation of around 110 hectares of land that will be needed for the project, as well as authorization procedures for a whole series of preliminary works on the site. These include archaeological excavations, the installation of two new platforms and some 600 new drilling sites for geological and hydrological measurements. The contract for the latter work was awarded (unsurprisingly) to the global mining group ANTEA, also responsible for the construction of the tunnels and currently on trial for a fatal mining accident in 2016 in the ANDRA laboratory.

Land grabbing and the ongoing destruction of our environment go hand in hand with measures to cement the economic and financial dependence of the local population. Or, as Mr. Torres puts it: “To develop as far as possible economic and commercial relations with local companies and respect for public procurement. Whenever possible, we want to work with them. We also try to locate certain test facilities, such as demonstrations, locally. (…) In the same vein, we have signed a contract with a group of companies, including FERRY CAPITAIN, to design a demonstration that will enable us to test the docking systems between the medium-level waste transport hood and the storage area”.

After the world leader in cable transport technology, POMA, set up in Froncles to build a prototype of the “Castor cableway”, here’s another demonstration company in Vequeville – we’re delighted! ANDRA is making the local population the gravediggers of its own territory, and still has the audacity to sell it to the public as an engine of employment and support for growth. It’s so cynical it makes you want to vomit.

We will continue to attack those responsible for and carrying out this costly, dangerous and useless CIGÉO project! In addition to sabotaging the work itself, we see attacks on subcontractors as an appropriate means of exerting financial pressure through property damage, and of highlighting ANDRA’s local involvement in the region.

No nuclear revival without Cigéo, no Cigéo without the collaborators!
We dedicate this action to the people fighting on the ground in Bure against the CIGÉO project, to the population of southern Meuse and Haute-Marne affected by ANDRA’s expropriations, and to the two people from Isère still accused of sabotage in the “POMA case”.

Informal Pirate Action Group for Sinking the Ferry


Vecqueville: electricity cuts claimed by by Cigéo opponents
Journal de la Haute-Marne (jhm), March 12, 2024

The commune of Vecqueville, near Joinville, suffered several power cuts on Sunday night.

A housing estate and Rue Victor-Hugo were particularly hard hit. The mayor of the village, Francisco Albarras, was informed by a deputy of the deliberate origin of the power cuts, which were quickly restored. “EDF [Enedis] came to check the electricity poles and found that they had been burnt in two places; you can still smell the petrol,” says the elected official. “Those who did this are reckless, because it’s a buried 10,000 to 20,000 volt line that runs through here,” says the elected official.

“Incendiary devices”

What happened? An “informal action group for sinking the Ferry” claims, on an anarchist site, to have carried out an act of deliberate sabotage targeting the Ferry-Capitain company, because it is hosting a demonstration for the Cigéo nuclear waste burial project at Bure-Saudron. The group explains that it managed to short-circuit three power lines “using incendiary devices”. “Our aim was to completely cut off the electricity supply to the four industrial complexes, thereby bringing production to a halt (at least for a while),” the group said in a communique. According to a witness, there were lights on in the company at the end of the night.

A few years ago, the same anarchist website claimed responsibility for the – confirmed – sabotage of electrical installations at Osne-le-Val, again in the context of the fight against Cigéo.

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https://sansnom.noblogs.org/archives/20893
Translated by Act for freedom now!