[Vosges] direct action against the chief engineer of ANDRA Emmanuel Hance

published on lille.indymedia (in french)

Winter – the season of contemplation, convivial moments spent together, but also of reflection and memories. Do you know that too? You sit with your friends, you tell old stories and suddenly, you ask yourself : “What happened to…?” In any case, that’s what happened to us, and that’s how this little winter tale began :

We wondered where Emmanuel Hance had gone. Emmanuel WHO, you ask? So you must not be from the south of the Meuse! Because here, all the children know who he is and when they can’t sleep at night, they look under their bed to see if it’s hidden there. Hated and feared by the population, no one has marked the conflict over the construction of the CIGEO storage site for radioactive waste in recent decades as much as the mustached chief engineer of ANDRA. Hance is the perfect caricature of a nuclear mafioso : responsible for all territorial issues outside the laboratory, he expropriates farmers from the surroundings of the small village of Bure and then proceeds with threats and poisoned gifts. And he doesn’t hide behind his desk for that. Hance likes to lend a hand : in Saudron, for example, a farmer suffered a heart attack after one of his famous home visits ; in the woods, the judge sprinkled gasoline on them while participating in a peaceful sit-in and injured an activist with a bulldozer. Even the judge in charge of land expropriations asked ANDRA to no longer send Hance as a representative during site visits, because his intimidations: «poison the climate of negotiations».

For more than a year now, the aging ANDRA guard dog has suddenly disappeared from the scene, which brings us back to the question : where is Emmanuel Hance? Has he perhaps accomplished the mission of his life with the end of the expropriation procedure 2024/25 and taken a well-deserved retirement? Age may well be the reason. Or was it that winter evening, two years ago, when he got his teeth farted at the town hall of Mandres en Barrois, which forever discredited him? Because who needs a fear maker who no longer scares. In short, we don’t know. It is not that we particularly miss his absence, but we also do not want to forget him completely as the harm he has done.

Because what is a Christmas tale with an ominous villain, without ‘happy end’? That’s what some owls and owls thought, who flew away in search of the villain scoundrel to inflict him a just punishment, although late. They did not find it in the Meuse or the Haute-Marne, where it had been rampant for years and sowed terror preparing the ground where toxic waste was to be buried forever, but at the edge of these lands, in the Vosges. Sheltered from prying eyes, hidden behind a well-trimmed garden hedge and monitored by all kinds of technical instruments.
And the owls said : “You have served your master faithfully and honestly for many years, profited from and abused your privileges and sold your native territory to bury in it the rejects of the modern world!” You will now receive your reward.”

Let us remain faithful to the truth. In reality, the owls did not say such a thing, because when they arrived, the night was already well advanced and the house was plunged into darkness. Here is probably how things went : Manu had gone to bed early that evening, yet it was a very special day for him. He would have liked so much to party with all his friends, but he didn’t have any. It was the price to pay, because fear makes one feel lonely and fear of others was precisely his job. And it was precisely the subject of the day. Today, nine years ago to the day, he had managed to multiply the value of his company! At the time, in the Juc wood, he had made these anarchists taste their own medicine, and this in front of the cameras. Those naive hippies might have thought they could discredit him with these images, but that day, Manu became immortal as a villain. A masterpiece!

That’s how he felt, full of admiration for himself when he returned home that day. The rest of the world knew nothing about this special day and so they spent this day like all others. He conscientiously carried out a series of tasks none of which would make the world better, then returned home to rest for the next day. But tonight, we had to party, friend or not, he told himself. He slipped on his slippers, poured himself a glass of good brandy, put on a festive hat that he had bought specially for the occasion from a supplier of festive items in Neufchateau and congratulated himself once again for his stroke of genius. Then he arranged the binders containing his collection of stamps, as he used to do every evening. And finding nothing else to do, he went to bed. It was a beautiful party, thought Manu before falling into a deep and satisfied sleep. When suddenly…

We move away from the truth again, because the story is simply more beautiful this way. Our research showed that the event in question had to take place on January 30, 2017, which unfortunately did not suit us at all in terms of dates. So we postponed the party to a little later.

On the night of February 9, we accessed the garden of its rather impressive plot, at 11 rue de la Corvée Marnette, in Liffol-le-Grand [Vosges], deposited an explosive device of type gazaki* next to its garden shed and put it into action!

This action has not put anyone in danger, not even Manu the awful, whose existence is morally corrupt. The damage caused should also remain limited. We would have preferred to attack the wooden shelter adjoining the main house for better damage. However, we decided, reluctantly and after long discussions not to target him. We join here the argumentation of the “Commando Fernando Perriera” regarding the sending of a cartridge to Patrice Torres (regional director of ANDRA), in February 2025.
In essence: “Be happy that, unlike you, we are fighting on the side of life!” Even if we must admit that we were tempted for a moment to make an exception for Manu.

Just like the chapter devoted to the abject Hance, winter is coming to an end. But there are still many pages to fill in the book on the fight against CIGEO, and you can all contribute to it one way or another. Even if it is still a little early to welcome spring, we explicitly inscribe our action in the context of the call : “for a black spring in 2026“, which we consider worthy of support, anarchist interest, and which we hope to flourish.

Informal Commission for the Promotion of Winter Tales that End Well

*gazaki is a low-intensity bomb, like those sometimes used in direct actions in Greece. It is an incendiary device that causes the explosion of one or more gas cartridges. In most cases, we consider that the use of this technique is not the most relevant : on one hand the explosion can have a random effect on the spread of fire, on the other hand this explosion is not very powerful (one imagines that it was still enough for the chosen target. However, we chose this technique to ensure that he wakes up and does not miss our show.

19/02/2026

Direct action

ANDRA

CIGEO

manif-est

Memory of the struggles