Range of decentralised responses across France and Germany mark twentieth anniversary of activist killed by a train carrying radioactive waste

~ Rob Latchford ~

Numerous decentralised actions have been carried out on railway tracks and nuclear industry sites in France and Germany to mark the 20th anniversary of Sébastien Briat’s death.

Briat was a 21-year-old French anti-nuclear activist who was struck and killed by a train carrying nuclear waste when preparing to chain himself to the tracks near Avricourt on 7 November 2004. The train was carrying 12 containers of waste from German nuclear power plants, which had been reprocessed in France, and was heading to Germany for storage, based on an agreement between the countries.

On the night of 1 November, slogans were spray-painted around the Bugey nuclear site, due for expansion, including “Nuclear neither here nor elsewhere”, “Nuclear kills, pollutes, colonises” and “two more reactors = Bugey Sacrificed”.

Sébastien’s relatives and friends gathered with 120 other anti-nuclear protesters for a vigil at Bar le Duc station on 7 November. The street sign was modified to symbolically rename the square “Place Sébastien Briat”, candles and flowers were placed and speeches and musical performances were heard.

Meanwhile, at Lüneburg station in Germany, 15 people gathered with candles, mock barrels of nuclear waste and banners, for a vigil to honour Sébastien’s memory and raise awareness of the upcoming transport of nuclear waste to Phillipsburg. Simultaneously, 45 people gathered at Hitzacker station, the last section of the route at the time of his death, where a commemorative stone and a plaque were erected several years ago. Protesters focused their opposition on the nuclear storage centre planned in nearby Bure.

On the night of 10 November, two vans were set on fire near Bremen, on the site of the arms company KAEFER which also supplies components for the nuclear industry. A letter claiming responsibility for the action stated: “all militaries in the world rely on gigantic quantities of uranium, oil and gas and control over these resources is the trigger for many military conflicts… Because the war machine that is killing in other places in the world is being set in motion in the industrial areas of this city… we should identify and attack the weak points in these supply chains”.