This page is about how the police treated me and my children when we tried to stop Orange from starting work on a mobile Antenna Mast site about 65 metres from our front door, even though they have open fields all around the village, they had to use a site near houses and young children and the Mairie does not give a dam about them or us, " he just thinks it's great to get a mobile phone working in his village."
When the diggers came up the hill at about 9.30 in the morning of 24/06/04, my wife ran to me in the garden shouting "they are here and starting on the Antenna site," l ran to the site and started to stand in front of the digger to stop it.
All l got was a load of french shouting, something like "get out of the way or l will have to move you with the bucket at the end of the arm", l felt very intimidated and shouted for my kids and wife to come over and help me stop them, this we did, they did not want to go near the kids or my wife, after about 45 minutes the police arrived and started telling us that we were in France not in England and we would have to stop our sit in and get off public land and let the work start.
We did not move and we stayed where we were about another hour. Six more police came, they started to make threats about what will happen to us here in France and then spoke amongst themselves saying "we should clear off back to England with Tony Blair, and also if you can't speak French you should not be living here"
"They seem to think that beacuse we are English we can not act how the French do, when they think something is wrong they protest to the limit ie block roads empty lorries stop you and our British lorry drivers from using their ports for ferrys."
They called for the Mairie who came and tried to talk to us about the antenna and he would arrange for two antennas at the top to be removed so it would only radiate over the village and not the houses behind the antenna.
We said that would be a step in the right direction, we said please go to your office and put it in writing and we would leave the site, he said he could not do that as his secretary was not here.So we said that we would except a hand written letter on noted paper.
This really got him going and he said through his interpreter, "that if l say that it will happen then it will happen l am the law" at this point the police agreed with him and tried to pressure me into excepting what he said and we should now leave the site.
It was then l said that this man had lied and schemed his way around this situation and had not told us the truth from the start and for him to now say trust me was a joke.
The Mairie left the site to go to his office and make contact with Orange, we all waited for him to come back with the paper work, after 15 mins or so they thought it would be good for me to go to his office and see if he had recieved a fax from Orange arranging not to have antennas at the back of the mast over our houses.
l went to the office and waited to see if the Mairie had recieved from Orange a letter/fax which we wanted, but it never arrived. So l went back to the site to find my wife and children in tears, the strong arm of the French law had dragged my wife and children hurting them as they forced them off Public land while l was not there.
They continued to make verbal comments about why we are here in France and not in England where we belong according to them
We and some French families are now waiting for the next site visit by more Orange workers
This page will be updated as and when they arrive.
05/07/04 Continued Action by Rachel (wife)
Cement mixer and lorry with metal mesh and plastic pipe work arrived at 12:30 hours, with three men, who then proceeded to eat their lunch. David Jnr rang the various numbers of contacts.I went over to the site and established that the men were there to work on the site.
The children arrived and also our close neighbour with her six children. Shortly after this two policemen arrived, by this time I (Rachel), Nicole(7), Charlotte(12), David(14) Yrs our neighbours two girls Ingrid(12) and Nancy(16) were in the hole which was prepared last time. Also others from the village got into the hole.
The police asked us to leave the site and I said I was waiting for the press to arrive. The Mairie came up to the site and Brigitte our neighbour had a heated discussion with him. He was very quiet, he also claimed that the land is private but it is not it is communial land. The police called for assistance and eventually there were nine police men/women in attendance.
The press arrived and took some pictures and had a long dicussion with the Mairie and french locals.The Mairie said "he would arrange a meeting with Orange" He told us this last time and as yet nothing had happened. I asked if we could have this in writing but was told this was not possible. He said Orange "would not continue working on the site until after the meeting". We asked for this in writing, again we were refused.
Again we were asked to leave the site by the police this we agreed to, only when the workers had gone and taken there lorry away.The workers left and we were helped out of the hole by the police, who were more polite than on our first protest.Chief Falzon suggested that Nicole our youngest "You should wear trousers next time"
Everyone left and then Nicole Bonnafous arrived when the Midi Libre Journalist arrived. She explained all the health risks to the journalist and Brigette (neighbour) spoke about the story of what had just happened. Later the Parissienne a newspaper from Toulouse telephoned and spoke to Nicole Bonnafous and the article was in the morning the morning paper.
We,ll let you know about the meeting if it happens!
The Meeting
12 July 2004 20-30hrs
Our meeting was arranged for the evening of the 12th of July at 20-30hrs.Orange were asked to attend but declined the offer (they said they have arranged at meeting for 15th July at 14.30hr when everyone was at work) "they really know how to f--uk everyone don't they"
Daniel Oberhausen a physician and Nicole Bonnafous the co-ordinator of the PRIARTEM(a group against the location of masts near places of habitation) were our speakers.Leaflets were printed and distributed to every house in and around the village. Large posters were placed in the village shops and on the trees.(the Mairie told us they were his trees and we were not allowed to pin on his trees, we did it any way)
On the evening of the meeting around 90-100 people attended. Daniel and Nicole explained all of the various dangers and health risks. After the speeches people were invited to ask questions.There was a good response from the audience and they had many questions to ask, as the audience got more confident they started to direct their questions towards the Mairie who was sitting on the front row.
One female villager said she would have to move if the Antenna was erected at this site she would have to move as she suffers from a form of tinnitus which is aggravated by Mobile phone Antennas.This has been proven to cause her problems as she had to move before to get away from an Antenna that was close to her home.
The Mairies wife sat at the back of the hall with a large male friend. She was taking notes and spent most of the evening giggling at what was said, like an adolescent school girl.When the Mairie began to speak to the audience he got a hostile reception.He was heckled at and he then got extremely angry and found it impossible to justify his decision about the siting of the Antenna. He said after a lot of loud protesting "I will try to find another site".
The meeting came to an end, and we thought we had achieved a good out come with the Mairie saying he was going to "look for another site away from houses."
Orange Meeting
15th July 2004 14-30hrs
As a small gathering of about 25-30 people at this meeting of which 10-15 people were directly connected with the Mairie.The representative from Orange side step any question which came from the audience that may give reasons for not having the Antenna so close to the houses of the village.
When he was asked about specific cases in Europe and in particular a case in England where Orange turned off a mast because it gave children cancer, he said "it was not true and it was all lies."
When we gave him a copy of a press cutting from an English national paper showing headlines that the Deputy Prime Minister was taking Orange to the Appeal Court he said "that was not true and even if it was they have different exposure rules in the UK"
When asked who has the safer limits he said nothing and just carried on with his written speech of bull shit about how we are all being radiated by, television, radio, micro waves ect, in other words one more radiation source would not make much difference
He said Orange had picked the site not the Mairie and it could not be altered by the
Mairie as he had no power to do so.This is not the case as there has been a new court
ruling that if the Mairie does not want the Antenna on a particular site he can have it
removed.
Please read press cutting sorry it in french
When we gave him this press cutting it stopped him dead in his tracks, and he said "this was news to him and he had not been told of this case and rulling " this is good for someone who is responsible for public debates."
We are now waiting for the next site visit, we are keeping up the pressure on Orange and of course the Mairie
New Site
www.saintpapoul.com
let the Mairie know how you feel
let the Mairie know how you feel