A69 construction site: the courts rule on the legality of the controversial motorway, two years after the start of work

Almost two years after the start of work, the fate of the A69 could be decided on Thursday, February 27. After many twists and turns, the Toulouse administrative court must decide on the legality of the construction site of the motorway under construction between Castres (Tarn) and Toulouse (Haute-Garonne). However, between the filing by environmental associations opposed to the infrastructure of an initial request for suspension in March 2023, then of the appeal on the merits in June 2023, and the decision of the administrative court, almost two years have passed. And the NGE company, mandated by the concessionaire Atosca, has made progress on this construction site which extends over 53 km . Franceinfo returns to this long battle between pro and anti-A69 in the courts.

The legal offensive began in the first days of the A69 construction site. While Tarn activist Thomas Brail settled in a plane tree on March 21, 2023, to oppose the felling of century-old trees along a road in Vendine (Haute-Garonne), France Nature Environnement seized the interim relief judge of the Toulouse administrative court to request a halt to this "felling operation" . The unsuccessful attempt failed again a month later before the Council of State, but did not discourage the opponents, who joined forces to plead their case: on June 19 of the same year, 14 organizations filed an appeal on the merits before the Toulouse administrative court. They considered the preliminary impact study to be "insufficient" and consider that the motorway does not meet "an imperative reason of major public interest".

This last point is crucial: for the pro-A69, the infrastructure aims to "open up" the rural area surrounding the Castres conurbation, currently 1 hour 10 minutes from Toulouse by the national road. By allowing motorists to save between 15 and 25 minutes of travel time between the two cities, for the price – not yet set – of a toll , the motorway is claiming this "compelling reason of major public interest" (RIIPM), a qualification that allows the Environmental Code to be exceptionally contravened in order to carry out a project. This RIIPM is included in the environmental authorisation issued in early March 2023 by the prefects of Haute-Garonne and Tarn, which opponents want to have cancelled, effectively placing the project in illegality. "If this compelling reason falls, the project falls with it" , declared to franceinfo the associations' lawyer, Alice Terrasse, at the very beginning of this legal marathon .

The opponents thus argue that the supposed advantages of such a motorway link, built partly in parallel with the toll-free national road, are insufficient in view of the damage caused to the environment. An assessment shared by the public rapporteur, Mona Rousseau. Responsible for giving an independent opinion on the dispute, the magistrate declared during the first hearing on the merits, in November 2024 , that it was "excessive" to invoke a "real situation of isolation" of the south of Tarn, and recommended that the court cancel the environmental authorizations. During a new hearing organized on February 18, she maintained this recommendation, ruling in favor of the applicants against Atosca and the State services, which maintain the essential nature of the motorway.

In a press release published on February 10, Atosca assured that it had "now achieved more than 300 million euros, or 65% of the total budget for the project" , sticking to the initial "objective" of delivering the motorway " at the end of 2025" . "This is communication", castigates Thomas Digard, one of the spokespersons for the local opposition group La Voie est libre. "Since the beginning, the strategy of the pro-A69 has been to say that everything is fine until the court's decision. We have to make people believe that the project is too far advanced to turn back", he points out. He thus assures that two months earlier, the prefectures of Tarn and Haute-Garonne cited a smaller committed amount: 250,000 euros, "of which 100,000 euros correspond to studies and analyses, in short, nothing that requires dismantling which would be costly" , he continues, assuring that "the deadlines are not credible".

Through summary proceedings, the collective and its allies have thus attempted to force the construction site to follow the pace of justice. Objective: to demonstrate the "urgency" of avoiding possible irreversible environmental damage, while awaiting a judgment on the merits. However, these requests have been systematically rejected by the interim relief judge of the Toulouse administrative court . In his latest refusal to suspend the work, on January 21, he justified this decision by the fact that "the environmental impacts have already been produced on the overall scale of the construction site". "A suspension pronounced urgently would, in any case, have had effects on a date close to that of the hearing next February" , he continues.

This decision on the merits was itself postponed, after the administrative court decided, on December 9, to reopen the investigation following a note under deliberation from the prefectures of Tarn and Haute-Garonne. This unexpected decision, taken "without any real new decisive elements" according to a hundred lawyers in a column published in January , increases "the risk that the final decision will come too late and make any cancellation unrealistic", they denounced.

Ecologist and co-president of Friends of the Earth Midi-Pyrénées, Jean Olivier refutes this " argument which consists of saying that most of the work has been done and that the impacts on the environment would have already taken place", "a cynical speech" which "confirms the fait accompli" . If the administrative justice never allowed the suspension of the work, other initiatives have allowed opponents to win small victories, he believes.

In March 2024, the French Office for Biodiversity ruled in favor of the ecologist, who had contested the legality of felling trees in the Crémade woods in Saïx (Tarn), then occupied by ZADists, by demonstrating the presence of blue tits nesting on the site. Thus, "we are activating the criminal front on the fringes of the administrative front" , summarizes Jean Oliver, again citing the filing in August of three complaints with constitution of civil party for "influence peddling", "illegal destruction" or "illegal taking of interest" . "The investigating judge also has the power to suspend the worksite", continues the ecologist, who concedes that these procedures can take years.