ABSTRACT
At the end of 2005 the “battle” of Venaus, a small community in Val di Susa in the western Italian Alps, took place between the protest movement No TAV and the police, acting on behalf of the Italian Rail Network and central government. Forty thousand marched from Susa to Venaus on 8 December in a bid to prevent the area from being used as a testing site for an auxiliary tunnel of the planned Treno Alta Velocità (TAV) between Lyon and Turin.1 The line is planned as a section of the ‘Mediterranean corridor’, which is to run from Algeciras (Spain) to Kiev (Ukraine), as part of the Trans-European Transport Network. At the point where the route crosses the western Alps, a 57 kilometre base tunnel from Maurienne (France) to Susa (Italy) is planned; one of the longest of its kind.2
