Get ready: Callout to mobilise against eviction of the ZAD

tractors

(Convoy of 400 tractors on recent demo in support of the ZAD. Sign says ‘vegetables not tarmac’)

This article is about developments in the ZAD (‘Zone to Defend’), the site in Western France of a 9+ year occupation against the construction of the Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport by French construction giant, Vinci.

Things have been heating up in France following the decision by a Nantes court to press ahead with the eviction of the last remaining official residents on site, who refused to sell their land. The court ruled that, of the residents, the farms and three families could be evicted straight away, but gave a two month delay to the eight other families. With this legal hurdle out of the way, it looks likely that attempts will be made to evict the occupations in the coming weeks.

Attempts to build an airport have been ongoing since the 60s, with resistance taking various forms since 1972. The site has been squatted for the past nine years.

Occupiers are calling on people to get ready to act on the first sign of eviction:

On and around the ZAD:

Call to come resist on the zone and to make sure that we’re not encircled and cut off. Disturb the check-points and movements of the police and ensure the circulation of supporters and supplies.

In the region :

– From the first day of the operation, coordinated actions to blockade roads, whether access points of the zone or the main axes and strategic points of the region.
– Occupations of “places of power” (government or private contractor buildings/offices, police stations, etc)
– Nighttime noise demos outside the hotels where the police and military police sleep.
– The first evening, meeting point of different actions or blockades, in front of the police headquarters at 6pm.
– Demo Saturday in Nantes after one week of intervention.

Outside of the region :

Callout to occupy places of power or local operations to slow the flow of capital, as well as coming to the ZAD to defend for those who can.

The airport will not be built – The zad of Notre Dame des Landes will continue to blossom!’

People are also now gearing up for a big mobilisation on 27th February, with a week of discussions and outreach in nearby Nantes from 15-21st February.

Notre-Dame-des-Landes, France: February 27th – General mobilisation for the abandonment of the airport project – prepare yourselves!

(from the ZAD, translated by ContraInfo)

The mobilisation in recent days has been tremendous: thanks to the strength of the demonstration on Nantes’ outskirts, but also due to the actions and gatherings multiplying in dozens of other French cities. It’s clear that the anti-airport movement is denser and livelier than ever. This is because it’s become emblematic of so many other struggles against social and environmental destruction, the loss of agricultural land, climate change, the commodification of land and our lives. It’s also because it sprouts the discovery of inhabiting the world in other ways.

However the government confines itself in its deafness. The farmers and inhabitants of the zad are still threatened by eviction. The beginning of the airport project work is still announced in the short term.

The movement therefore calls for the continuation of actions for the coming weeks, and to pay particular attention to the judgement handed down on January 25th.

All components of the struggle also call for a day of massive mobilisation on February 27th. This mobilisation will be under the banner of stopping eviction threats against farmers and inhabitants of the zad, as well as the airport project’s definitive abandonment.

We invite all committees and supporters to very strongly mobilise from now for this date. We appeal for you all to give it the widest possible diffusion starting from today. We invite everyone from the region, from all corners of the hexagon [of France], and beyond, to organise convoys and buses to reach this big mobilisation.

The forms and meet ups for the 27th February will be defined by the movement depending on the context. A more precise call-out will come following the outcome of the trial on January 25th.

Those who cultivate and live on the zad will never leave! There will never be an airport in Notre-Dame-des-Landes!

Recent actions against state and Vinci targets

26th January: 7 trucks belonging to Vinci subsidiary torched

Seven trucks belonging to Eurovia Limousin Poitou-Charentes, a Vinci subsidiary, were burnt to a crisp in Limoges, in solidarity with the ZAD. ‘ZAD partout’ (ZAD everywhere) was left sprayed on the shutters of one of the buildings, and a communique was issued saying ‘long live the ZAD, social struggles and solidarities’.

25th January : demos against the court ruling

Following the court verdict, over 100 people marched in Nantes, stopping traffic and shouting « Résistance, sabotage. Vinci dégage » (Resistance, sabotage, Vinci get lost), and « Ni prison, ni expulsions n’enterreront nos rebellions » (Neither prison nor eviction will bury our resistance). The town hall was grafittied using a fire extinguisher filled with paint, which was then thrown at the doors, smashing the glass. The police station was also tagged and CCTV that had just been reinstalled was neutralised another time.

Another hundred or so people gathered in Rennes and attacked the town hall with paint bombs and fire extinguishers full of paint, leaving the word ‘ZAD’ in giant letters across the facade.

Rennes

Rennes

Rennes town hall

Rennes town hall

Rennes cooshop

Rennes copshop

Nantes town hall

Nantes town hall

Rennes

Rennes

22nd January: Two houses of Vinci collaborators attacked

Guy and Béatrice Lamisse, who own houses on the edges of the airport site, started a petition calling for the eviction of the ZAD. On 22nd February, their houses were broken into and the words “collaborators” “not for sale” and “capitalists” left on the walls. The regional president of the Republican party (formerly UMP), condemned the act and called the area «une zone de non-droit » (a lawless zone).

Above reports loosely translated from Le Chat Noir Emeutier.

Collaborators

Collaborators

22nd January: Rennes – Blockade against the airport and its world, its high-speed rail and its jail

(via ContraInfo)

This Friday, January 22nd, at dawn, people decided to blockade the road passing through the middle of the construction site for the new Eurorennes train station and in front of the women’s prisons’ main entrance.

Bins were overturned, oil spilled and the following text plastered on the jail walls and site fences:

This morning, we’re blocking this road with help from some bins tipped over and spilled oil…

Because “the city of tomorrow”, wedged between the business district’s megalomaniac construction site that is Euro-Rennes, its future LGV high-speed rail and Europe’s largest women’s prison, represents itself exactly as dreamt up in the offices of Rennes Métropole’s project.

Because we don’t have the same dreams.

Because a few minutes of congestion will always be derisory compared to the hours, months and years spent in cages. That these few minutes enable anyone to lift their head from their daily routine and realise it.

Because it makes us laugh when we imagine a prison guard having a hard time going home after spending the night locking people up, or a yuppie missing their €120 TGV for their business meeting in Paris.

Because on the other side of this road Euro-Rennes kick out the poor to build hotels, offices, alternative cinemas, lofts and trendy bars. That the computer-generated images, which flourish on the neighbourhood’s giant billboards, give an idea of the population on the make: young suited tie-wearers, very white, very rich, hurriedly walking on the slick walkways.

Because they want the whole city to resemble this, and this makes us puke.

This morning, we’re blocking this road.

Because only a few kilometres from here, at Notre-Dame-des-Landes, the State and Vinci want to build an airport. They’ve decided to evict those who oppose it today, as tomorrow – with their planes and runways – they intend to evict those who don’t have the right papers.

Because the State everywhere imposes its projects by money, cops and media propaganda, always crushing the poorest and undesirables in the process. With the state of emergency, it gives itself the means to again unleash a little more.

Because right now, loads of people are mobilising against the airport and its world, multiplying the actions, and we want to contribute. It is possible to fight, everywhere and directly, in different ways, as a few or as many, against these institutional structures and these companies that spoil our lives.

Because this world that they’re building isn’t ours, and we don’t intend to let them do so.
Because we’re incompatibles, our desires are turned into disorder against them, and we don’t let go!

We prefer a thousand times over a lively neighbourhood where we meet, we give each other a helping hand and we sound off with neighbours on a scrap of wild wasteland over a bbq; to a parade of wheeled suitcases dragging their suits on the video-surveilled tarmac.

We prefer a thousand times over spaces where we’re experimenting with ways of living, residing, feeding ourselves, fighting and relating with one another differently; to the prospect of control towers, vast eco-labelled hangars and their gantry vigipirates.

Against the airport and its world, its LGV and its jail.

http://rabble.org.uk/get-ready-callout-to-mobilise-against-eviction-of-the-zad/