Free Louna! News on the case of Louna, an anarchist trans woman imprisoned in the context of the fight against the A69
03/2/2025 by soutienlouna via thefreeonline at https://wp.me/pIJl9-FVm
For over 3 months now, Louna, an anarchist trans woman fighting against the A69, has been held in pretrial detention in the Tarbes men’s remand center, in solitary confinement.
Despite this confinement that is starting to last and the conditions of solitary confinement, she remains in good spirits, and we are still angry at knowing that she is locked up.
Louna is accused of setting fire to a construction machine intended for the construction of the A69, a highway project that is both useless and deadly, between Castres and Toulouse, French State.
Requests for release, including under judicial supervision or electronic bracelet, have been refused to date.
Here we return to the reasons for her incarceration, with the elements that we collected following the other GAVs and during a public hearing, or with what we interpret from them, but also on the means to support her.
The next important deadline for Louna’s release arrives in mid-February: the judge of liberties and detention will have to decide whether or not to renew her pretrial detention. Let’s widely disseminate the slogan “Free Louna”, demand her release and let the jails, repression, and state transphobia die!
Elements of the investigation
On the night of May 4 to 5, 2024, a construction machine was set on fire not far from the A69.
According to investigators, CCTV footage on site shows two people setting fire to an excavator, then one of them being the victim of a backfire.
However, that same night, a person was admitted to the emergency room in one of the hospitals closest to the scene of the fire, with injuries that could be compatible with the accident filmed.
This is Louna, who was actually hospitalized that night.
According to the hospital’s video surveillance images, three people appeared to be accompanying her. Investigators spotted the car in which Louna allegedly arrived with these three people, they noted its license plate and therefore the identity of its owner.
In addition, Louna indicated a relative’s phone number on an emergency form, a number that the cops seem to have assigned to one of the escorts.
Cops also came to seize her clothes during her hospitalization, and found DNA on a pair of shorts as well as on a covid mask contained in a pocket. This DNA was attributed to one of the people suspected of having accompanied Louna to the hospital.
During their visit, the cops also took photos of the escorts, of better quality than the CCTV images because they were taken with a smartphone.
This was probably to try to do facial recognition, for example by comparing them with the TAJ¹ photos or the photos of A69 activists from their incessant profiling.
After two days in hospital, Louna decided to leave on her own.
Based on this evidence, four people were arrested in mid-October: Louna, two people suspected of being among the escorts, and the owner of the car.
The police custody lasted up to 94 hours, and the interrogations continued.
The investigators also took advantage of this police custody to recover Louna’s DNA from a cup she had used, in addition to having probably already picked it up on her clothes at the hospital.
They state that this same DNA was found on a covid mask left at the scene of the fire.
Following this, Louna was indicted as part of this investigation and the three other people were released.
The charges are the destruction of an excavator by an explosive substance and participation in a criminal conspiracy with a view to destruction by dangerous means.
In mid-November, investigators carried out a new search and arrest at the home of an activist, still looking for at least one of the hospital escorts.
They searched his apartment for a watering can, because the hospital’s video surveillance allegedly shows a person getting out of the car with a watering can (hide your watering cans haha).
Apparently, the cops targeted this person using facial recognition, because she was known to the police for her activism in the green circles of her city. She too was released without further action to date.
Among the other techniques that the cops said they used or that are assumed to have been used, they allegedly tapped one or more of the suspects for calls and text messages in clear text and tracked the movements of one or more people by tracking their cell phones.
They also seem to have asked for bank statements (including relatives of the suspects), and since they do it almost systematically, we can imagine that they asked for the fadettes² of the number(s) they assigned to one or more suspects.
Finally, relatives of certain suspects were summoned for questioning during police custody, in the case where they had been designated as a relative to be notified by those in custody.
Another investigation was opened in mid-December, with the custody of three people on targeted arrests lasting up to 36 hours.
The investigation concerned several fires involving construction equipment, and the people arrested were released without further action.
Given the numerous fires attributed to activists against the A69, there are very probably still other investigations underway on other facts.
To protect ourselves collectively against repression, it seems important to us to continue to train and update ourselves on cop techniques and collective defense practices:
Small collective defense manual
“Lafarge” case, investigation methods
Owls facing repression
No trace project website
How to provide support
Louna has been in jail for three months, in solitary confinement in a men’s remand center, as is common for incarcerated trans women³.
She has a few visitors, but her loved ones live several hundred kilometers from Tarbes. She also receives many letters of support, which always warm her heart.
To get the information to write to her, you can send an email to soutien-louna@riseup.net, because she does not wish to publicly disclose her civil status and prison number.
Louna is being repressed by a transphobic judicial system, which protects the capitalist interests of the promoters of the A69, a motorway project whose devastating nature is widely documented ⁴.
The magistrates also accuse her of not being socially integrated enough, a reason that this classist justice system finds sufficient to place someone in pre-trial detention rather than under judicial supervision.
We invite all anti-capitalist, queer, environmental activists, etc., to demand her immediate release and share the word: “Free Louna!” You can reshare this press release as well as the one from November, print them and distribute them in activist places in your city, during demonstrations, speak at events, create banners, etc.
You can also print and stick this Free Louna sticker everywhere and create others.
In general, do not hesitate to take the initiative of any support action that speaks to you.
We gather on this site all the information related to Louna’s situation. You can put the link on the leaflets, stickers, publications that you distribute and write to us following an action of support so that we share it on the site if you wish.
Finally, you can provide financial support. There have already been several events in support of Louna (a huge thank you!!), thanks to which we can meet the costs of her incarceration for the moment.
You can continue to organize them, especially if her incarceration is prolonged, or also donate to the kitty of the antirep of the A69, which supports Louna but also to the hundred ongoing trials of activists of this struggle, who are suffering enormous repression.
Thank you very much for all the solidarity that is expressed towards Louna, it warms the heart! You are incredible!
We end with a few words from Louna:
“For all the letters of support for Louna, already thank you for the strength ❤ There is a part of comfort in seeing so much support in my hands.
As one of the letters says “the walls are thick, but the solidarity is powerful! » All these small and large drawings, these poems, these anecdotes, these words of love, tenderness, rage, hugs, embraces, winks… We are here! A special thank you to the trans sisters, we know we are, strength!
Thank you for the support evenings, the canteens and everything else.
A thought for those who struggle here and elsewhere, we are together ❤ Strength to those who build, who care, who stay ❤ Love and Rage
TranS RightS »
Free Louna!
No Macadam!
Break the jail!
Support collective for Louna
soutien-louna@riseup.net
https://soutienlouna.noblogs.org
- The Processing of Criminal Records (TAJ) is a police file recording information relating to victims of crimes and to persons implicated and warned in the context of criminal investigations. In addition to the offence in question, it contains data relating to the identity of the persons involved and victims, in particular information on their civil status, address, profession and photograph.
- Detailed invoices (Fadettes) contain the metadata of the exchanges, without their content.
https://soutienlouna.noblogs.org/post/category/infos/
The Free 