Category: Rest of Europe

The ZAD air­port protest site in France is still being evict­ed, a process that start­ed on the 16th Octo­ber. The zone is grad­u­al­ly being mil­i­tarised but there are HUGE num­bers of pro­test­ers and seem­ing­ly more every day. We’re still fight­ing and it is not over!

 

The ZAD is an air­port protest site in the west of France about 15 miles north of Nantes. The air­port project was first pro­posed over forty years ago and has faced con­stant local resis­tance ever since. The project is in the hands of the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Vin­ci, who also pro­vide us with such « ser­vices » as pris­ons, motor­ways and nuclear pow­er sta­tions. It is the par­tic­u­lar pet project of Jean Marc Ayrault, the for­mer may­or of Nantes and cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter of France. In 2009 the area host­ed a cli­mate camp, since when the emp­ty hous­es, fields and forests have been grad­u­al­ly fill­ing up with peo­ple dis­gust­ed enough by the idea of this project to stay and resist. The rea­sons for stay­ing are as diverse as the peo­ple but the occu­piers are unit­ed by an idea that fight­ing cap­i­tal­ism is an impor­tant part of every day life.

Until the sec­ond week of Octo­ber you could still arrive on the ZAD and tour around over 30 diverse squats spread across the two thou­sand hectares of threat­ened land. The peo­ple unit­ed there to organ­ise togeth­er and fight the air­port project but life was far from unpleas­ant. You could vis­it the beau­ti­ful straw bale house bak­ery which pro­vid­ed the whole area with free price deli­cious organ­ic bread twice a week, the numer­ous col­lec­tive gar­dens, the home made wind tur­bine to pro­vide elec­tric­i­ty, an incred­i­ble range of cab­ins on the ground and in the trees made from col­lect­ed mate­ri­als, and you prob­a­bly would have been able to go to a con­cert, join us on an action, help us organ­ise and come to a few work­shops to learn to climb, or knit, or maybe build a rock­et stove.

Right at the moment though we don’t seem to be leav­ing our­selves much time for knit­ting work­shops. On Tues­day 16th Octo­ber the large scale evic­tions of the place we call home start­ed, and they weren’t mess­ing around. Riot vans arrived en masse from six in the morn­ing and had already evict­ed sev­en squat­ted hous­es and burned down a large cab­in by ten o’clock in the
morn­ing. Approx­i­mate­ly 1200 police were mobi­lized for this so-called ‘oper­a­tion Cesar’, pro­tect­ing the work­ers who use plain white vans, hid­ing their com­pa­ny names. Since then we have seen near­ly all of those hous­es razed to the ground, and most of the oth­er hous­es, cab­ins and homes evict­ed and destroyed. We have also near­ly all inhaled a deeply unhealthy amount of tear gas and seen enough blue vans and uni­forms to last a life­time.

Novem­ber 17th marked a huge change in this strug­gle. Some­where between 20,000 and 40,000 (depend­ing who you ask) peo­ple were unit­ed togeth­er on the ZAD for the huge Reoc­cu­pa­tion Demo. This involved a march from the near­by town of Notre Dame des Lan­des (where the demo stretched for near­ly eight kilo­me­tres) and a chest­nut plan­ta­tion close to the cen­tre of the ZAD where huge num­bers of peo­ple got to work build­ing new cab­ins. All day it was hard to move with­out get­ting in the way of peo­ple ham­mer­ing, saw­ing and car­ry­ing heavy things into the for­est. Wit­ness­ing this col­lec­tive ener­gy, and around ten large cab­ins fly up in the course of an after­noon is some­thing I feel sure no one who was there will for­get. More than that, I hope that every sin­gle per­son who squelched through the mud that day now feels a part of the ZAD, and that we will not lose this col­lec­tive force and feel­ing of strength.

Since then there has been vast amounts of con­struc­tion hap­pen­ing all over the ZAD. In fact it is hard to find a place on the zone where you can’t hear ham­mer­ing. Unfor­tu­nate­ly for the last few days this has been accom­pa­nied by the all-too-famil­iar sounds of con­cus­sion grenades and tear gas bombs. All of the new­ly con­struct­ed tree hous­es and the ground-lev­el cab­in in the Rohanne For­est were once again destroyed on Sat­ur­day in a con­stant cloud of tear gas. Despite being attacked and gassed all day, the huge num­ber of sup­port­ers on the ground stayed until long after dark, until the police final­ly crawled back to where they came from. The new cab­ins from the reoc­cu­pa­tion demo remain but they seem at risk of being destroyed soon. Dur­ing the week­end there were huge num­bers of injuries for the first time since the evic­tions start­ed, and also instances of police attack­ing bar­ri­cades in the mid­dle of the night. They are now mil­i­taris­ing the zone, stay­ing all night on the roads to stop us from mov­ing around, and grad­u­al­ly upping the pres­sure.

We got the mes­sage yes­ter­day that the evic­tions will stop if we stop build­ing, and I can smile as I type that I feel quite sure that will not hap­pen. We will con­tin­ue to build, and con­tin­ue to fight against this oppres­sion and this use­less sense­less project. We will not let them win so eas­i­ly. There are more of us than ever and it is impos­si­ble not to feel strong, even as they destroy our homes again and again. We have ever more peo­ple to keep rebuild­ing.

There is a call out for sol­i­dar­i­ty actions on our web­site (www.zad.nadir.org)

The strug­gle con­tin­ues for us, and we wel­come the sup­port of those as dis­il­lu­sioned as us with this com­pa­ny, the state, and the con­trol on our every day lives. It’s far from over, this is just the begin­ning.

Call out for actions dur­ing the moment of evic­tion of the ZAD
 https://zad.nadir.org/spip.php?article175

new call out for occu­pa­tion
https://zad.nadir.org/spip.php?article348

On Sat­ur­day, after 3 weeks of evic­tions, more than 30000 came to re-occu­py the ZAD. As soon as the demon­stra­tion arrived, 5 pre-assem­bled struc­tures start­ed to get built: a meet­ing-room of 80m², a kitchen house, 2 dorms, a toi­let and bath block and a work­shop. On Mon­day, the work is con­tin­u­ing. Thanks to a sum of inge­nios­i­ty, mutu­alised know-hows and end­less human chains to bring the tons of planks, as well as cross beams, met­al sheets and straw need­ed for the work, the con­struc­tion showed rapid progress. The achieve­ment is breath­tak­ing and can only leave large smiles on the faces. In order to cel­e­brate that, and inau­gu­rate, a cock­tail is announced, this mon­day, at 17:00 on the build­ing site. We would like to remind that these new col­lec­tive build­ings are meant to become a cross­ing point for all oppo­nents and a head­quar­ter to organ­ise the resis­tance to the air­port con­struc­tion. The pre­fec­ture, who knows what they are about, have announced as of Sat­ur­day, that these new huts were “woed to dis­s­ap­pear”. But the land on which most of the recon­struc­tions were made is lent by a pri­vate own­er, opposed to the air­port and also ongo­ing expro­pri­a­tion. There­fore, there is no judi­cial way to evict these hous­es with­out lenghty pro­ce­dures, regard­ing the urban­ism laws, to be per­formed by the pre­fec­ture. We can there­fore reas­sure to every­one who got involved in the reoc­cu­pa­tion on Sat­ur­day, that, accord­ing to the law, these build­ing can­not be destroyed at least for some time. In par­ralel to these large con­struc­tions, new huts and liv­ing spaces are being rebuilt on squat­ted lands owned by Vin­ci. Dur­ing the whole week, tree­hous­es will nest again in the Rohanne for­est. Whether on lent or squat­ted land, we call for com­mon defense of each hut with all the required deter­mi­na­tion. If they evict us, we resist, and we come back!

Since the 16th of Octo­ber the French state have attempt­ed to evict Europe’s largest post­cap­i­tal­ist land occu­pa­tion — La ZAD — to build a new “green” air­port. Farm­ers and activists have joined togeth­er to resist the project and the evic­tions have lit a fuse across France. KK immers­es her­self in this rur­al rebel­lion against eco­nom­ic growth and the cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe and dis­cov­ers a utopia in resistance.(for ver­sion of text with more image see — http://labofii.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/rural-rebels-and-useless-airports-la-zad-europes-largest-postcapitalist-land-occupation/)

 

Octo­ber 2012, Notre dames des Lan­des, France.

Chris leans for­ward, her long fin­gers play with the dial of the car radio “I’m try­ing to find 107.7 FM“ … a burst of Clas­si­cal music, a frag­ment of cheesy pop. “ Ah! Here we go! I think I’ve got it?” The plas­tic pitch of a cor­po­rate jin­gle pierces the speak­ers: “Radio Vin­ci Autoroute: This is the weath­er fore­cast for the west cen­tral region…happy dri­ving to you all. Traf­fic info next.” Chris smiles.

The nar­row wind­ing road is lined with thick hedgerows. Out of the dark­ness the ghost­ly out­line of an owl cuts across our head­lights. We dip down into a wood­ed val­ley, the radio sig­nal starts to splin­ter. The well-spo­ken female voice frac­tures into sta­t­ic, words tune in and out and then anoth­er kind of sound weaves itself into the air­waves. We rise out of the wood onto a plateau, the rogue sig­nal gets clear­er, for a while two dis­turbing­ly dif­fer­ent voic­es scram­ble togeth­er – the slick man­i­cured pre­dictable sounds of Radio Vin­ci wres­tles with some­thing much more alive, some­thing raw­er — a fleshi­er fre­quen­cy.

“ The cops have left the Zone for the night…good rid­dance… Yeah! Keep it up every­one! ……” There is a moment of silence, we hear breath­ing, then a scream into the micro­phone “This is Radio Klaxon…Klac Klac Klac! ”We feel her emo­tion radi­ate through the radio waves “ It’s nine thir­ty five.” she laughs and puts a record on, pas­sion­ate Fla­men­co gui­tar pumps into the car.

We have entered La ZAD (Zone A Défendre) – Europe’s largest post­cap­i­tal­ist protest camp – a kind of rur­al occu­py on the east­ern edge of Brit­tany, half and hour’s dri­ve from the city of Nantes. Like a rebel con­stel­la­tion spread across 4000 acres of for­est, farm­land and marsh­es, it takes the form of old squat­ted farms and fields, DIY straw­bale hous­es, upcy­cled sheds, the­atres and bars cob­bled from indus­tri­al pal­lets, hob­bit like round hous­es, cute cab­ins built with the worlds waste, huts perched fright­en­ing­ly high in trees and a mul­ti­tude of oth­er dis­obe­di­ent archi­tec­tur­al fan­tasies. La ZAD has been a lab­o­ra­to­ry for ways of liv­ing despite cap­i­tal­ism since the 2009 French Cli­mate Camp. At the camp activists and locals put togeth­er a call for peo­ple to come and live on the Zone to pro­tect it. Now you can find ille­gal goat herds and organ­ic bak­eries, bike work­shops and bee hives, work­ing farms and com­mu­nal kitchens, a micro brew­ery, a mobile library, and even a pirate radio sta­tion: Radio Klax­on. Emit­ting from a secret loca­tion some­where in the Zone, the sta­tion hijacks the air­waves of “Radio Vin­ci Autoroute” the traf­fic infor­ma­tion chan­nel run byVin­ci for its pri­vate net­work of French motor­ways. The world’s largest multi­na­tion­al con­struc­tion firm, builders of nuclear pow­er sta­tions, African ura­ni­um mines, oil pipelines, motor­ways, car parks and the infra­struc­ture of hyper cap­i­tal­ism every­where, Vin­ci also hap­pen to be the com­pa­ny com­mis­sioned by the French gov­ern­ment to cov­er this land­scape in con­crete and open Nantes new air­port (it already has one) by 2017. Well that’s the plan.

***

The irony of this che­quered land of tiny fields framed by miles of rich hedgerows, is that unlike the rest of France, it escaped the regroup­ing process of the 60’s which anni­hi­lat­ed the ancient field pat­terns to open up large tracts of land to indus­tri­al agri­cul­ture. If the orig­i­nal air­port plans, designed to host Con­corde, had suc­ceed­ed this land would have been under tar­mac by 1985, luck­i­ly it was nev­er built and so the old field pat­terns remain, as do the fad­ed paint­ed signs that date from the first protests 40 years ago, placed along the side of the road by local farm­ers declar­ing: “NON A L’AEROPORT”.

Our car pulls into “la vache rit” a tem­po­rary HQ housed in a giant barn that belongs to one of dozen local farm­ers who has refused to sell their land to the state. A mur­al on the façade shows a plane dis­guised as a bale of hay with an indig­nant farmer, pitch­fork in hand, shout­ing up at it: “ you ‘aint going to con us !” Inside the barn, hun­dreds of peo­ple mill around, there are grey haired pen­sion­ers, farm­ers in mud­dy over­alls, a sprin­kling of hip­pies, folk in black hood­ies adorned with head­torch­es and more than a hand­ful of dogs. Food is being cooked and peo­ple are brows­ing the largest “free shop” I’ve ever seen (a space where there is no mon­e­tary exchange). Long tables bend under piles of clothes all sort­ed neat­ly and sign­post­ed: jumpers, trousers, rain jack­ets, boots (with box­es for dif­fer­ent shoe sizes) there is even a box marked dirty socks under one filled with dry ones. Locals from the near­by vil­lage of Notre-Dames-des-Lan­des wash the socks reg­u­lar­ly. Anoth­er table has moun­tains of med­ical sup­plies whilst the kitchen is drown­ing in pas­ta. Sup­port­ers from the four cor­ners of France have donat­ed all this mate­r­i­al over last week since the evic­tions began.

On the 16th of Octo­ber 1200 riot police over­ran La ZAD. What had been a state free autonomous zone for 3 years was trans­formed with­in a few hours into a mil­i­tarised sec­tor. Road blocks sealed the area, Guard Mobiles (mil­i­tary mobile gen­darme units) swarmed every­where and bull­doz­ers groaned across the fields. Despite resis­tance from the Zadists with­in two days the state had destroyed 9 of the 12 of the squat­ted spaces. On one of the days, 250 rounds of tear gas were fired into the mar­ket gar­den, seem­ing­ly to con­t­a­m­i­nate the veg­eta­bles that until that moment had fed over 100 Zadists every week. A prin­ci­ple of war is of course: cut off the sup­plies.

In the after­noon lor­ries guard­ed by con­voys of riot vans car­ried away every sign of habi­ta­tion — every lump of rub­ble or shard of bro­ken fur­ni­ture, smashed crock­ery or child’s toy — every­thing – noth­ing remained but mud and the scars of bull­doz­er tracks. This act of era­sure was not only to make sure that the wreck­age would not be used to rebuild the hous­es, but more impor­tant­ly to wipe out all traces of his­to­ry. Ruins hold mem­o­ries and sto­ries; and a prin­ci­ple of resis­tance is that sto­ries stoke strug­gle.

“The move­ment is fin­ished”… the local rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the min­istry of inte­ri­or Patrick Lapouze told the press “For two years… it’s been a law­less zone. I can’t even go there with­out police pro­tec­tion and when I go I get stones rain­ing down on my car.” Sound­ing more like a wild west Sher­iff than a twen­ty first cen­tu­ry civ­il ser­vant, he con­tin­ued: “We are going to stop them returning…When there are only 150 of them entrenched in a barn, they won’t last long!” Rais­ing the stakes some­what he ends his state­ment: “ If the République is unable to reclaim this area, then we should be wor­ried for the République.” As these words left his lips the images of an elder­ly woman col­lect­ing tear­gas can­is­ters from a veg­etable gar­den, ancient farm­hous­es being torn down and farm­ers pushed around by riot police were cir­cu­lat­ing across the coun­try and seemed to be touch­ing a nerve.

***

The air­port is the pet project of ex may­or of Nantes, now prime min­is­ter — Jean marc Ayrault. Nick named “L’ Ayrault­porc” (a bril­liant play on words merg­ing air­port and pig) his rat­ings had already hit record bot­tom before all this and now it seems his mega­lo­man­ic vision, might be a big­ger thorn in his side than he ever imag­ined.

Ayrault has pro­mot­ed the project as a “green” air­port. It is planned to have liv­ing roofs cov­ered in plants, the two run­ways have been designed to min­imise taxi­ing to save on CO2 emis­sions and an organ­ic com­mu­ni­ty sup­port­ed box scheme is meant to feed its employ­ees. Next year Nantes will cel­e­brate its lat­est award: Euro­pean Green City 2013. To call this dou­ble speak is gen­er­ous. Accord­ing to a recent report a hun­dred mil­lion peo­ple will die of cli­mate dri­ven deaths over the next eigh­teen years. 80 per­cent of the slaugh­tered will be in coun­tries with low­er emis­sions. The Cli­mate Cat­a­stro­phe is no just a threat to our ecosys­tems and the species we share the bios­phere with, it’s a vio­lent war on the poor. A war whose weapons are built out of steel and con­crete, tar­mac and plas­tic, a war with a tick­ing methane bomb hid­ing under the artic. Waged by the log­ic of growth and dis­guised as every­day life accord­ing to cap­i­tal­ism, cli­mate change is the war that could end all wars and all life with it. Call­ing an air­port green is as cyn­i­cal as call­ing a con­cen­tra­tion camp humane. Per­haps in the future if we are lucky t have one, descen­dents will con­tem­plate the ruins of air­ports as we do the sites of 18th cen­tu­ry slave mar­kets and won­der how a cul­ture could have com­mit­ted such bar­bar­i­ty so open­ly.

***

I’m fast asleep in the Cent Chenes (one hun­dred oaks). For three years peo­ple from post­cap­i­tal­ist move­ments across Europe have made their way here to build alter­na­tive lives and lay a new geog­ra­phy over the car­tog­ra­phy of cap­i­tal­ism. There is a deli­cious panoply of new place names, includ­ing: La Bell­ishrut, Pinky, La Saulce, Phar Wezt, No Name, La cabane des filles (the girl’s cab­in) and the myth­i­cal Le Sabot (the clog) named for its ref­er­ence to peas­ant life as well as the fact that it is the root of the word Sab­o­tage, which lit­er­al­ly means to throw your clog into the gears of the machine.

Lit­tle do I know, as I dream of police dogs devour­ing stray cats, that Hur­ri­cane Sandy has just hit Haiti and is on its way to New York. Last time I was here in this beau­ti­ful straw­bale home made entire­ly from the waste of the world it had a work­ing bak­ery (sup­ply­ing man ZADISTS and neigh­bours with dai­ly organ­ic Bread) and an abun­dant Per­ma­cul­ture gar­den. With the threat of expul­sion the bak­er moved his oven to a safer (legal) space near­by and the oth­er inhab­i­tants includ­ing Katell, who teach­es in the local pri­ma­ry school, took every­thing of val­ue to the safe house. Now Les Cent Chenes is a ghost of what it was and has been hand­ed over as a col­lec­tive sleep­ing space for the activists that have streamed in over the last days, from across the coun­try and abroad, to put their bod­ies in the way of the evic­tions. We sleep here to be at hand when the police arrive at the Le Sabot near­by, which is still hold­ing out.

Le Sabot is the mar­ket gar­den now con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by CS gas. It was born in the spring of 2011, when over a thou­sand peo­ple armed with spades and seeds coor­di­nat­ed by the inter­na­tion­al rad­i­cal young farm­ers move­ment Reclaim The Fields, occu­pied a cou­ple of acres of land in the cen­tre of the Zone and overnight turned it into a func­tion­ing veg­etable farm. It has its own two-roomed cab­in, a poly­tun­nel, solar show­er and now a ram­shackle pent­house on the roof, to climb onto in case of expul­sion. Merg­ing resis­tance and tan­gi­ble alter­na­tives, Le Sabot reflects the post­cap­i­tal­ist pol­i­tics of refus­ing to sep­a­rate cri­tique and con­struc­tion, the yes and the no.

I spend the day with Ish­mel an art activist and one of the founders of the French Clown Army. His home La Bell­ishrut was burnt to the ground last week. “How come you’re still smil­ing? “ I ask as we walk through the dense net­work of green lanes that joins up the dots of this rebel con­stel­la­tion. “ I don’t care about mate­r­i­al things, when we build some­thing we know it won’t be for­ev­er.” We build bar­ri­cades until sun­set. Ish­mel has man­aged to get hold of the old set that the Nantes Opera House were throw­ing away, it hap­pens to be from an opera about the holo­caust. The mas­sive wood­en pan­els make per­fect­ly sur­re­al bar­ri­cad­ing mate­r­i­al.

Since the evic­tions began the art of build­ing bar­ri­cades has tak­en over every­day life here. Every­where you go there are lit­tle teams busy haul­ing mate­ri­als across fields to erect anoth­er bar­ri­cade. The idea is to slow the advance of the author­i­ties, who have named their oper­a­tion “Cesar” (Cae­sar), per­haps a ref­er­ence to Obelix and Asterix’s resis­tant gal­lic vil­lage. The police have tak­en the week­end off and so bar­ri­cade build­ing takes place unhin­dered. Now there are ones ris­ing on the main roads as well as the green lanes. The mul­ti­plic­i­ty of dif­fer­ent bar­ri­cades reflects the dif­fer­ent cul­tures at La Zad. Those liv­ing in tree hous­es in the Rohanne For­est have asked peo­ple not to cut liv­ing trees to make them, whilst in anoth­er part of the Zone a team of chain­saw wield­ing activists are tack­ing down oak trees and tan­gling steel rope in them. On one cross­roads there are at least 20 bar­ri­cades. There are huge hay rounds with cans of petrol beside them ready to set alight when the police attack, there is a steel wall of sitex – Anti squat­ting pan­els nor­mal­ly placed on doors and win­dows of emp­ty hous­es –care­ful­ly weld­ed togeth­er and one made from dozens of bam­boo poles stick­ing out of the tar­ma­ce dec­o­rat­ed with bicy­cle wheels. In the mid­dle of it all there is makeshift kitchen with its mobile piz­za oven made from an oil drum.

An affin­i­ty group armed with cord­less angle grinders and pick axes, have been work­ing day and night to cut out giant trench­es in the roads — in some cas­es sev­er­al metres wide and deep­er than a stand­ing adult. Ish­mel tells me that yes­ter­day road agency work­ers came to mend one of the small­er trench­es (not sur­round­ed by bar­ri­cades). Peo­ple talked to the work­ers, try­ing to per­suade them to turn around and not do the dirty work of Vin­ci. Despite hav­ing their boss on the phone coerc­ing them to keep going, they even­tu­al­ly turned around and left the hole in the road. One of the work­ers lat­er said “ What trou­bled me most was that I’m from around here and (clear­ing the bar­ri­cades to allow the police to cir­cu­late) feels a bit like I was help­ing demol­ish my neigh­bours house.” There have also been sto­ries of local police offi­cers that refused to join the oper­a­tion.

The crisp autumn sky swarms with stars. A full moon throws shad­ows of gnarly oak trees across the fields. We end the evening in Le Sabot, dozens of us sit­ting around the wood burn­ing Agar to eat a deli­cious Dauphi­noise (a hot pot of pota­toes and gar­lic) gar­nished with fresh­ly picked Cepp mush­rooms. Radio Klax­on plays in the back­ground as always: “We have some news: 15 more cop vans have been spot­ted on the motor­way dri­ving in this direc­tion”. There are already 30 parked up for the night in the apt­ly named Dis­co Par­adiso near­by, it seems the sec­ond wave of “oper­a­tion Ceasar” may well hit tom­morow. Lau­ra, who has been on walky-talky all day to coor­di­nate the defence, picks up a piece of chalk and on the black­board which used to be where the dates for plant­i­ng and har­vest­ing crops were writ­ten up; she scrawls angri­ly: NON! (NO).

***

It’s 6am. We walk through the thick morn­ing mist. Neb­u­lous sil­hou­ettes appear out of nowhere pass­ing us on the lane, peo­ple are calm­ly mak­ing their way to the bar­ri­cades. We car­ry a small radio, the fin­ger tap­ping beat of the Lati­no hip hop group Cypress Hill keeps us awake: “When the shit goes down you bet­ter be ready! ” Cof­fee is served in Le Sabot. Lau­ra is glued to her walky-talky. Gweno, ties his T‑shirt around his head to make a DIY bal­a­cla­va through which you can still see his cheeky smil­ing eyes. He climbs over the first bar­ri­cade, in which Ish­mel plant­ed bunch­es of flow­ers last night and nails a large sign to a tree oppo­site: Zone of Strug­gle: Here the peo­ple com­mand and the gov­ern­ment obeys. It’s a phrase from the Zap­atista autonomous indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in Chi­a­pas. Mes­sages of sol­i­dar­i­ty have been sent from Chi­a­pas and many of the activists here feel a strong link to the masked rebels who since 1994 have built zones free of the state and cap­i­tal­ism in the jun­gles of south­ern Mex­i­co. Many of the Zadists also wear masks dur­ing actions, to resist being iden­ti­fied by the police, but also per­haps, to be in tune with the spir­it of Zap­atismo, where a masks both hides you and makes you more vis­i­ble and where being nobody and yet every­body is a source of free­dom.

“They are com­ing!” Lau­ra shouts! The cab­in emp­ties except for Marie, grey haired and in her six­ties, who con­tin­ues cook­ing un phased by the news of attack. Through the mist the glint of dozens of riot shields can be seen advanc­ing down the lane towards Le Sabot. Time speeds up: the bar­ri­cade is set alight, huge flames cut through the dawn light, we hear the sharp crack of tear gas can­is­ters being shot at us, rot­ten veg­eta­bles, paint bombs and stones arc into the sky. I see Gwen run­ning through the field hold­ing one of the shields he has lov­ing­ly made: “Be care­ful you are walk­ing on our beat­root,” it says on it. For a moment we can’t tell what is CS gas and what is morn­ing mist, then our skin begins to scream in pain, Ish­mel pass­es us lemon juice. The boom of con­cus­sion grenades being fired sev­er­al kilo­me­tres away thun­ders across the plateau, Radio Klax­on tells us that they have attacked the for­est simul­ta­ne­ous­ly and are try­ing to take peo­ple out of the trees.

It takes sev­er­al hours for the police to get through the bar­ri­cades at le Sabot, by the time they arrive in the gar­den most of us have dis­solved into the land­scape. A few peo­ple remain on the roof of the cab­in and Marie con­tin­ues to cook inside. “You will nev­er get rid of us” a woman in a pink ban­dana shouts from the roof “we will be back and we will plant even more veg­eta­bles!”

We hear the sound of the sam­ba band in the dis­tance. We fol­low the rhythm to try and meet up with it, weav­ing through fields and hedgerows to avoid the roam­ing riot police. We pass through a field of high corn, sev­er­al trac­tors and a huge har­vest­ing machines are plough­ing through it. For a minute the image of nor­mal agri­cul­tur­al life tak­ing place a few hun­dred metres from burn­ing bar­ri­cades and fly­ing rub­ber bul­lets seems incon­gru­ous, but then we see that it’s Syl­vain Fres­neau dri­ving the machine. Fres­neau is one of the 100 local farm­ers who are due to be expro­pri­at­ed. He has refused to be bought off by the state. On the lane next to his field there are a thir­ty trac­tors fly­ing the Con­fed­er­a­tion Paysan flag (Inde­pen­dent peas­ants union) backed up against a line of riot police. The trac­tors were meant to have reached Le Sabot in sol­i­dar­i­ty, but got blocked here. It seems how­ev­er that they have at least man­aged to allow Fres­neau to har­vest his silage. For Fres­neau to sim­ply do his every­day job on this land is an act of resis­tance.

We final­ly meet up with the sam­ba activists. They have marched across the fields to the side of the Zone where bull­doz­ers are clear­ing bar­ri­cades off the roads and the relics of rur­al riot­ing lit­ter the tar­mac. We fol­low the band into the near­by for­est where they play under the tree hous­es, the police haven’t got here yet. Like a nim­ble tree sprite Natasha glides down from her plat­form. Rolls of rope and jan­gling kara­bin­ers hang from her climb­ing har­ness. Some­one on the ground below has just picked a mush­room and is won­der­ing what species it is. A pro­fes­sion­al botanist, Natasha imme­di­ate­ly iden­ti­fies it: “ it’s a Rus­sule — super tasty!” she declares before climb­ing grace­ful­ly back up into her tow­er­ing tree.

More than any­one she is aware of how ecosys­tems are net­works of com­ple­men­tary rela­tion­ships, con­stant­ly in the process of becom­ing more com­plex and diverse. She under­stands the uni­ty in diver­si­ty that makes up the rich inter­de­pen­dent webs of life with­in this for­est and is hor­ri­fied by the cul­tur­al vac­u­um that wants to anni­hi­late it. There have been sim­i­lar cul­tures, cul­tures out of touch with their ecolo­gies and stick­ing to entrenched beliefs. They all wrecked their life sup­port sys­tems and even­tu­al­ly col­lapsed. Rob­bing the future to pay the present was the hall­mark of every civil­i­sa­tion whose ruins now scat­ter the deserts.

***

The gov­ern­ment has said they want to “cleanse” La Zad before Novem­ber 2012, so that they can begin the archae­o­log­i­cal sur­veys and ecosys­tems ser­vices swaps. By law the head­lands of all water­shed should be pro­tect­ed and for every wet­lands destroyed two have to be cre­at­ed else­where. Vin­ci how­ev­er, is try­ing to chal­lenge these laws in court, the ver­dict will be heard next month. If the ecosys­tems ser­vices project goes ahead it plans to move newts from twelve marsh­es to a new habi­tat. It’s the twist­ed log­ic of cap­i­tal­ism that thinks that you can swap one ecosys­tem for anoth­er, a mar­ket mind­set where every­thing has become a com­mod­i­ty — a thing devoid of con­text. It’s the final gasps of a cul­ture that has for­got­ten that our world is made up of rela­tion­ships and not things.

The state assumed that by destroy­ing the Zadists hous­es and gar­dens they would demor­alise the move­ment. They thought it would col­lapse when its mate­r­i­al base had been removed. But quite the oppo­site has hap­pened. “ Our home is not the cob walls and hay bails, the bricks and mor­tar,” says Sara, whose house was raised to the ground last week, “but the land and the neigh­bours and its those con­nec­tions that have been strength­ened dur­ing the evic­tions”. It’s not just the friend­ships between activists on the bar­ri­cades but also the com­plex rela­tion­ships between the Zadists, the locals and farm­ers that have evolved. “It’s been a roller coast­er over the years,” Sara con­tin­ues. “ There have been strong moments of togeth­er­ness but many of mutu­al mis­un­der­stand­ing and mis­trust. There are some huge ide­o­log­i­cal dif­fer­ences between us “the squat­ters” and the folk at ACIPA (The anti-air­port NGO made up of local farm­ers and res­i­dents) but since the evic­tions, new lev­els of mutu­al aid and sup­port have emerged that were once thought impos­si­ble.” Not only did Syl­vain Frenau’s open his barn as an HQ for every­body, but the ACIPA has set up a dai­ly meet­ing point to bring new­com­ers into the Zone to resist the evic­tions, farm­ers and locals have stood as human shields between the masked activists and the riot police, whilst oth­er have helped build bar­ri­cades with their trac­tors and loaned out chain saws. The French state and media has tried under­mine exact­ly this kind of shar­ing and sup­port over the years by labelling the “ squat­ters” as mem­bers of the “Ultra­gauche” (the ultra left­ists).

A myth­i­cal term invent­ed by a neu­rot­ic gov­ern­ment Les Utra­gauche has been used to crim­i­nalise ant­i­cap­i­tal­ist anti­au­thor­i­tar­i­an move­ments and throw the shad­ow of ter­ror­ism on to any­one influ­enced by the so called: “insur­rec­tion­ist sect” that wrote the now infa­mous, and accord­ing to right wing U.S TV anchor Glen Beck “evil” book — The Com­ing Insur­rec­tion. The term is a weapon of repres­sion used to divide the “good pro­test­ers” from the “bad” and to pre­vent diverse move­ments aris­ing. What the gov­ern­ment can’t con­trol is a move­ment where farm­ers plough­ing and plant­i­ng mono­cul­tures are rebelling side by side with Per­ma­cul­tur­ists who prac­tice no dig gar­den­ing, where old­er trade union­ists sit in meet­ings with young anar­chists who demand an iden­ti­ty beyond work, where lib­er­tar­i­an com­mu­nists teach pen­sion­ers how to for­age wild foods and Anti civil­i­sa­tion veg­ans are lent tools by dairy farm­ers. It is the dynam­ic diver­si­ty of ecosys­tems which keeps them strong and resilient to shocks, move­ments that find uni­ty in diver­si­ty are much hard­er to destroy than hous­es and forests and the new social­ist gov­ern­ment knows this.

Novem­ber, 2012

It’s been three weeks since the evic­tions began, Le Sabot and Les Cent Chenes have been razed as have many of the oth­er spaces. Two squat­ted farm­hous­es are still wait­ing for evic­tion papers whilst every time the police tear down the bar­ri­cades around the Phar Wezt they pop up again like mush­rooms — as I write, its tree hous­es and huge com­mu­nal kitchen remain intact and peo­ple are already rebuild­ing in hid­den nooks and cran­nies of the Zone. Thanks to the pres­sure on the gov­ern­ment from hunger strik­ing farm­ers last sum­mer, locals who have refused to sell can­not be evict­ed until all legal recours­es have been exhaust­ed. The tri­al around the destruc­tion of wet­lands is due to end in Decem­ber.

In many strug­gles, the moment of evic­tion tends to be the last great cry after which the move­ment fades. But quite the oppo­site has occurred, some­thing in the fight to save La ZAD has res­onat­ed with peo­ple. The last three weeks have com­plete­ly trans­formed this strug­gle from a rel­a­tive­ly local debate into an issue of nation­al impor­tance. Every­one on the ground expect­ed the media to run images of masked youth throw­ing molo­tovs (3 in all were thrown!) and to play the “Ultra­gauche” card which would have scared peo­ple away and opened the door to harsh­er police repres­sion. But this did not hap­pen and instead sol­i­dar­i­ty began to flow and flow. Sup­port groups sprung up in cities and vil­lages across France. Meet­ings, demon­stra­tions and actions erupt­ed from Toulouse to Stras­bourg, Brus­sels to Besançon: Graf­fi­ti and ban­ners appeared on dozens of motor­way bridges, a clown army invad­ed the offices of Vin­ci, thou­sands marched in Rennes, Nantes and Paris, a go slow blocked com­muter traf­fic into Nantes, Vin­ci car parks were occu­pied and made free for motorists, the stu­dios of a nation­al radio pro­gramme were invad­ed and state­ment read on air, a street the­atre pieces mar­ried Vin­ci and the state and the win­dows of sev­er­al social­ist par­ty HQ’s were smashed.

Front pages in the region­al and then the nation­al press includ­ing Le Monde, began to talk about La ZAD as the “new Larzac”. Begin­ning in the 1970s the Larzac was a rur­al area of South­ern France where a mass move­ment brought farm­ers and activists togeth­er against the expan­sion of a mil­i­tary base. It is seen as an icon­ic strug­gle not only due to it link­ing rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent cul­tures but also because it won. In 1981 the recent­ly elect­ed social­ist pres­i­dent François Mit­ter­rand can­celled the project. To name La ZAD as new Larzac is like a lit­tle known rock band being tout­ed as the new Lady Gaga!

The dis­course has expand­ed too. Many now see the choice to build an air­port as yet anoth­er symp­tom of a sys­tem total­ly out of touch with real­i­ty. It’s a choice from anoth­er age, an age where cli­mate change and peak oil were not yet threats, an age where the ide­ol­o­gy of infi­nite growth was all that defined progress, an age where peo­ple talked about eco­nom­ic cri­sis rather than the econ­o­my as cri­sis. It seems that what is touch­ing peo­ple is the destruc­tion of ways of life that refuse to be part of such an anti­quat­ed soci­ety. It is the farmer’s firm stand, risk­ing every­thing so that they can con­tin­ue to pro­duce food from their land that moves us. It is the Zadists’ sim­ple lives, lived accord­ing to their pas­sions and their needs that gives us glimpses of the future in the present. These things make so much more sense than a new air­port built for polit­i­cal ego, cor­po­ra­tions and prof­its. And now the sto­ry is no longer just about an air­port, but about mak­ing the choice to oil the sui­cide machine wreck­ing our future or becom­ing its counter fric­tion and open­ing new visions of what it means to live.

A year ago, the Zadists put out a call for a day of Reoc­cu­pa­tion to take place four week­ends fol­low­ing the antic­i­pat­ed evic­tions. They asked peo­ple to come with ham­mers, planks and pitch­forks, to reoc­cu­py the land and build. When they wrote the text lit­tle did they realise that the evic­tions would have trans­formed La ZAD into a house­hold name. The date has been set for the 17th of Novem­ber. Every Tues­day for the past three weeks 150 peo­ple have packed out a hall in Nantes to plan the reoc­cu­pa­tion. There are groups of local archi­tects and car­pen­ters busy design­ing a meet­ing house; mass cater­ing kitchens from across Europe are prepar­ing food for thou­sands; 200 trac­tors are being mobilised; farm­ers, artists and activists from the Mor­bi­han are plan­ning a toi­let and show­er bloc com­plete with caca­pult; a kit house is due to be brought 800 km from Dijon and there are even rumours that some­one wants to build a “spe­cial” tow­er in the field where the con­trol tow­er is planned.

How many peo­ple will turn up on the 17th of Novem­ber no one knows, how many homes and farms will be rebuilt remains a mys­tery, but what is clear is that this move­ment is far from being fin­ished, in many ways its has just begun.

For more infor­ma­tion see: zad.nadir.org

 

 

We live in the Rohanne For­est. Over the last two years the many peo­ple who lived and passed by here built sev­en high tree hous­es and a beau­ti­ful three storey col­lec­tive house. On Thurs­day 19th Octo­ber the police came with bull­doz­ers and destroyed and removed the house.

Start­ing the next day, and with lots of moti­vat­ed helpers, we built a new kitchen six metres up in the trees, and a new com­mu­nal sleep­ing area a bit high­er. On Tues­day 30th Octo­ber and Wednes­day 31st Octo­ber they returned with bull­doz­ers and cher­ry pick­ers to destroy the two new­ly fin­ished cab­ins, plus all of the sev­en high tree hous­es.

Dur­ing the week­end we built a quick tem­po­rary shel­ter on the ground with palettes and tarps so we could sleep there while we rebuilt tree hous­es. It was basi­cal­ly a few mat­tress­es on palettes, with beams lashed in the trees and cov­ered with tarps.

Ear­ly in the morn­ing on Mon­day 5th Novem­ber around twen­ty vans of police blocked the roads around the Rohanne For­est. They entered on foot, and at half eight in the morn­ing six sleep­ing peo­ple were sur­round­ed by about thir­ty cops with shields, full riot gear and loud walkie-talkies, and shout­ed at to take what they could car­ry and get out of the for­est. The cops start­ed tak­ing the shel­ter apart and cut­ting the tarps into small pieces while we were still inside. After forc­ing us out­side and push­ing us to the ground they slashed the mat­tress­es and pulled every­thing apart, includ­ing cut­ting the polyprop into lit­tle tiny bits so it couldn’t be used again. If I didn’t know bet­ter I’d say we’re real­ly start­ing to piss them off.

They tipped a first aid kit out onto the wet mud­dy for­est floor and stamped on it, and did the same with a box of mues­li and the whole con­tents of the bike pan­niers. They destroyed the two bikes despite our hand on heart promise from the head of oper­a­tions that we could keep our bikes and they wouldn’t be touched. They pushed us, threat­ened us and forced us out of the for­est. They tried to march us through a huge pud­dle near the entrance which we know to be knee-deep, but we sug­gest­ed they instead fol­low us along the path which they did.

All the male bod­ied peo­ple were searched by the cops, and one had an iden­ti­ty card with them. The oth­er two were tak­en to the police sta­tion for an iden­ti­ty con­trol. The three female bod­ied peo­ple were asked to wait for a female cop to search them. And wait. And wait. And wait. It seems that there are not so many female bod­ied cops around and after about an hour they just asked for our names and places of birth. When they had no joy extract­ing per­son­al infor­ma­tion there was a small cop hud­dle, after which they came and told us we could just go. Why? We were told they’re sick of us, and that they didn’t want to waste time in the police sta­tion, again, if we weren’t going to give our names, again.

It was a pret­ty unpleas­ant way to wake up, all told, and it is get­ting slight­ly tedious hav­ing our hous­es destroyed every week. Hav­ing had some time to reflect though, I can’t help but see a fun­ny side to all this. When we asked why we were being tak­en the police told us it was ille­gal to free camp in the for­est. So around two hun­dred riot police sur­round­ed the for­est and spent almost an entire day scour­ing through every inch of it just to find six free campers. Twen­ty vans full of high­ly equipped cops just to take down a few beams and tarps put up in a week­end. We might have had enough of cops but it’s clear that we are annoy­ing the shit out of them. To the next for­est cab­in!

Sto­ry of the assaults and loot­ing of the ZAD — Europe’s biggest anti-air­port protest camp by the forces of cap­i­tal­ist destruc­tion. Writ­ten thanks to the tes­ti­mo­ny of many friends.

*Le Sabot* —  Tues­day,

We woke up at 5:00am and had cof­fee togeth­er. The cops showed up by the Paque­lais road around 7:00am at day­break. We got the info that the cops had attacked the south bar­ri­cade. They moved with­out the usu­al three warn­ings, they spent thir­ty sec­onds at the burn­ing bar­ri­cade before get­ting some paint-eggs in their faces. They secured the whole road from the Far Ouezt to Sabot. Clash­es occured at the first bar­ri­cades of the Sabot. Cops man­aged to bypass the bar­ri­cades through the fields and make us move back by copi­ous­ly spray­ing tear gas in our faces. Six­ty of us charged the cops. An exchange of var­i­ous colour­ful pro­jec­tiles and col­or­ful shots against their tear gas. Cops and offi­cials are forced to retreat, suf­fo­cat­ed by their own tear gas, those big ass­holes. We spend all the after­noon in a tense face off. In the after­noon, the cops man­age to secure the Sabot. Any resis­tance becomes impos­si­ble. The Zadists can no longer defend them­self once the bull­doz­er has destroyed all the bar­ri­cades and opened a trench along the Paque­lais road.

Thir­ty peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the strug­gle sit in front of the gap­ing hole left on the road, pre­vent­ing the bull­doz­er to enter the com­mu­ni­ty gar­den. The pigs take a lot of shit. Their eyes, with­out a shred of human­i­ty and gray mat­ter, remain unmoved despite the relent­less jokes that from all sides. The night cops and the Depart­men­tal Direc­torate of Equip­ment col­lab­o­ra­tors who are work­ing with them go away booed.

Wednes­day

A small gath­er­ing in the Sabot fol­lowed by break­fast. The day before, Caesar’s legions destroyed all the bar­ri­cades and pro­jec­tiles (5 bar­ri­cades smashed the shov­el, paint-eggs, rot­ten veg­eta­bles, bot­tles of paint, stones, shield to pro­tect from tear gas and rack­ets to throw it back to the pigs). In the ear­ly-morn­ing, only one bar­ri­cade pro­tects us from the cops, built in the night by new­ly arrived com­rades, farm­ers and sup­port­ers that came on the spot. Cops sur­prise us by very quick­ly spread­ing out in the field. They keep their posi­tion thir­ty meters from us. The cops shoot us with tear gas from behind then gas the road of the Sabot where we are. It quick­ly becomes impos­si­ble to stay there, the atmos­phere is unbreath­able and we are a bit help­less in front of the robo­cops. We move back they advance, gas mask on the snout, and they quick­ly enter and block off the Sabot (west side). The cops also take the East side of Bel­ish­root bar­ri­cades, bar­ri­cades of Pimky (north) and con­tain peo­ple at the Far West (south). Speed con­fronta­tion, which leaves us with a bad taste of pow­er­less­ness. Dif­fer­ent groups are try­ing to focus on the machin­ery to slow down their work, but the con­voy is well pro­tect­ed, foot patrols, escorts and all the trim­mings. Result of the day of destruc­tion: the com­mon house of the Sabot is down, the col­lec­tive gar­den is dev­as­tat­ed, home of the Cent Chênes (for­mer bak­ery from ZAD, bread is excel­lent, thank you) is also destroyed. Three oth­er hous­es we built on the Sabot zone are also down the ground. Cop climbers tack­le the tree­hous­es.

*Rohanne **For­est *

Tues­day, around 3:00pm, cops charge Rohanne for­est with the aim to destroy the huts in the trees. Cops make use of many rub­ber bul­lets. The bas­tards aim for the head. A friend tes­ti­fies that he took a flash­ball shot in the neck. Sev­er­al friends were injured by shrap­nel of con­cus­sion grenades. Oth­ers are wound­ed by rub­ber bul­lets.

On Wednes­day morn­ing, the police sur­round­ed the for­est and secured every­thing. Police trained for moun­tain res­cue begin to fetch activists still perched in the trees to pro­tect the huts. A cher­ry pick­er destroyed a hut under heavy pro­tec­tion of the cops.

The cops destroyed sev­er­al huts with cher­ry pick­ers dur­ing the day. The zadists on the spot remain pow­er­less in front of insur­mount­able repres­sion.

*Bar­ri­cades north and south on the Vigneux **road *

Tues­day morn­ing, 7:30am, the cops take the cen­tral bar­ri­cade run­ning through the Suez road. Some of the activists go back to the south bar­ri­cade and end up in the fields of the right to pass through the Rohanne for­est and defend the north bar­ri­cade block­ing the road that leads to the Vache Rit. At the inter­sec­tion of the Fos­s­es-Noires and Vigneux road a bat­tuca­da enters the cow field in front of the Saulce. Bull­doz­ers and trucks full of rub­ble come and go and begin their death bal­let. The house will final­ly be razed to the ground, the tree hous­es destroyed and also all the build­ings on the ground. Cops that pro­tect bull­doz­ers and trucks receive paint-eggs. The cops, already ridicu­lous, are the laugh­ing stock of the peo­ple there. Fierce Zadists resist on the north bar­ri­cade all day long. The cops sprayed the activists on site with tear gas and con­cus­sion grenades. The bar­ri­cade with­stands the onslaught of hel­met­ed fren­zy until 5:00pm.

*Pimky Road*

The cops were in front of the Pimky on Tues­day after­noon. The demo which start­ed from Notre Dame at 10:00am is just on the left side after the Fos­s­es-Noires road. Many zadists and sup­port­ers make a human chain to pre­vent cops from access­ing to the road to the cab­in. The next morn­ing, two friends hid­den in the bush­es for an hour and a half hear the cops make bad jokes. These brain­washed idiots fin­ished by tak­ing apart the four tents on site in the midst of filthy laughs.

*Search at the Secherie*

Wednes­day after­noon, sev­er­al police vans sur­round­ed the Secherie mak­ing it impos­si­ble for inhab­i­tants to enter or exit. Two offi­cers of the Judi­cial Police are look­ing for a trans­mit­ter, cer­tain­ly annoyed by the con­tin­u­ous emis­sion of Radio Klax­on mak­ing the social­ist state, cops and Vin­ci look ridicu­lous for the past two weeks. After an unsuc­cess­ful search of two long hours, the whole ridicu­lous troop go back, tails between their legs, hands emp­ty. A bull­doz­er pulls up a tree on the site of the for­mer house of the Coin, under heavy police escort along the the Fos­s­es-Noires road. Our com­rades has­sle the pigs until they leave.

Thurs­day

The cops block the round­about of Ardil­lères and Paque­lais and search all vehi­cles. It seems that we expect a new wave of repres­sion tomor­row “par Tou­tatis” !

AND for more … Obelix oper­a­tion is launched !

The strug­gle will con­tin­ue until the total defeat of the ene­my forces and the with­draw­al of social­ist occu­pa­tion army from the ZAD.

In the end, Vin­ci and the Left Gov­ern­ment must not mis­un­der­stand ! The fact that near­ly all of our liv­ing places are destroyed will not make us renounce. Quite the oppo­site. We will rebuild on the ruins that Caesar’s legions have left. We will now be more mobile and reac­tive to future attacks of the French state, of Vin­ci and its sub­sidiary AGO.

The State lies ! The ZAD is absolute­ly not evac­u­at­ed ! We are all there and ready for any­thing ! This place will not be con­cret­ed !

Oper­a­tion Obelix : A men­hir in your face, Ayrault ! Vin­ci, out of our lives!