Let’s defend the autonomous space “Les Tanneries” (Dijon, France)

After near­ly 10 years of exis­tence, the squat­ted autonomous space “Les Tan­ner­ies” (in Dijon, France) is being threat­ened by a pri­vate med­ical com­plex, facil­i­tat­ed by the city coun­cil.

The excel­lent social cen­tre, which host­ed the cen­tralised part of the PGA con­fer­ence last year as well as dig­i­tal strug­gles and free spaces sec­tions, has a con­cert hall for do-it-your­self bands and mis­cel­la­neous per­for­mances, a hous­ing col­lec­tive and some anar­chist affin­i­ty groups, a hack­lab for devel­op­ing free soft­ware and run­ning alter­na­tive servers, a free-shop, a space for mecanics and a bike-repair work­shop, rehearsal rooms and silk-screen­ing facil­i­ties, a meet­ing space, an organ­ic gar­den, an alter­na­tive media cen­ter, a squat­ters’ helpdesk, a library, diverse eco­log­i­cal con­struc­tions, dozens of col­lec­tives, asso­ci­a­tions, and local and inter­na­tion­al net­works that use the space to organ­ise gigs, info-nights, actions, skill-shares, meet­ings and projects…

Les Tan­ner­ies

Let’s defend the autonomous space “Les Tan­ner­ies”
— - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - —

Català : http://squat.net/tanneries/documents/EADT-C-20070324-cat.txt
Deutsch : http://squat.net/tanneries/documents/EADT-C-20070324-de.txt
Español : http://squat.net/tanneries/documents/EADT-C-20070324-es.txt
Euskara : http://squat.net/tanneries/documents/EADT-C-20070324-eu.txt
Français : http://squat.net/tanneries/documents/EADT-C-20070324-fr.txt
Ital­iano : http://squat.net/tanneries/documents/EADT-C-20070324-it.txt

After near­ly 10 years of exis­tence, the squat­ted autonomous space “Les Tan­ner­ies” (in Dijon, France) is being threat­ened by a pri­vate med­ical com­plex, facil­i­tat­ed by the city coun­cil.

We have just learnt that Dijon’s city coun­cil had start­ed nego­ci­a­tions to sell our occu­pied social cen­tre and its sur­round­ings to devel­op­pers, and we need to act quick­ly. This is why we have writ­ten the fol­low­ing state­ment, explain­ing why and how we will strug­gle for the very exis­tence of our free space.

After a first protest gath­er­ing and an occu­pa­tion of the city hall meet­ing in Dijon, as well as a num­ber of sup­port e‑mails from around the world, the coun­cil has slight­ly backed up, say­ing they will con­sid­er putting our space aside from the build­ing plans. How­ev­er, there’s no way we can take that for grant­ed; not if we don’t main­tain pres­sure, and
pre­pare to act when­ev­er we face anoth­er alert.

To all those you have been sup­port­ing us in the last few days, we want to say: “thanks for the amaz­ing strenght and sup­port you gave us”. We still incite you all to voice your dis­con­tent to the munic­i­pal­i­ty, by let­ters, tele­phone or e‑mails:

Mairie de Dijon,
M. François Reb­samen, Phone: (+33|0)-380–745-151
place de la Libéra­tion, E‑mail: francois.rebsamen@ville-dijon.fr
21000 Dijon, France.

We need to main­tain the pres­sure, and take the time to cre­ate a wider mobil­i­sa­tion. Thanks again, and be ready!

* * *

With­out any pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion, but with the typ­i­cal secre­cy that typ­i­cal­ly accom­pa­nies hot top­ics dur­ing elec­toral peri­ods, the “social­ist” city coun­cil of Dijon is mak­ing deci­sions that could lead to the end of the autonomous space “Les Tan­ner­ies”, a self-man­aged polit­i­cal, social, cul­tur­al cen­tre that was squat­ted in 1997 and since then has become an impor­tant node for anar­chist orga­niz­ing and rad­i­cal activism through­out France and Europe. Need­less to say, we won’t let the coun­cil car­ry out their plans!

We have known since the begin­ning that we would have to main­tain a per­ma­nent vig­i­lence, despite the no-evic­tion agree­ment we obtained from the coun­cil in 2002 after years of fight­ing. In ear­ly March 2007, after hear­ing per­sis­tant rumours about threat­en­ing projects, we got in touch with the coun­cil and asked for expla­na­tions. In spite of repeat­ed
queries by mail and tele­phone, we were denied any answer. Two days ago, we got the con­fir­ma­tion from a trust­wor­thy but unof­fi­cial source, that the city coun­cil had sent a writ­ten pro­pos­al to the “Générale de San­té”, offer­ing them the whole piece of land where our space is locat­ed for the con­struc­tion of a 25-acre-wide pri­vate med­ical com­plex by 2009.

While pub­lic health­care ser­vices are being threat­ened by neo-lib­er­al pri­vatis­ing strate­gies in Europe, will the Dijon city coun­cil encour­age a “two gear” health sys­tem?

Does it want to con­tribute to the monop­oly of Générale de San­té, the biggest euro­pean pri­vate health transna­tion­al (1.741 bil­lion euros of prof­it in 2006, 10% of the transna­tion­al being owned by Viven­di) by offer­ing them land that is close to the city cen­tre, almost in front of the pub­lic hos­pi­tal? The Générale de San­té would thus seize this great oppor­tu­ni­ty to close its near­by hos­pi­tals rather than ren­o­vat­ing them.

Despite its pro­pa­gan­da for “par­tic­i­pa­tive democ­ra­cy”, the city coun­cil did not ask us or any­one else from the neigh­bour­hood before propos­ing the deal which not only threat­ens us, but would also decide upon the future of a whole part of town.

* * *

Why sup­port Les Tan­ner­ies loud and clear?

The coun­cil’s poli­cies are already threat­en­ing the inde­pen­dant the­ater “L’El­do­ra­do”, as well as the squat called “Le Tobog­gan”. By plan­ning to shut down “Les Tan­ner­ies”, the coun­cil will osten­si­bly con­firm that the so-called “social­ist” par­ty wants France to be a police state with­out places of resis­tance, exper­i­men­ta­tion and pop­u­lar cul­ture.

“Les Tan­ner­ies” hosts a con­cert hall for do-it-your­self bands and mis­cel­la­neous per­for­mances, a hous­ing col­lec­tive and some anar­chist affin­i­ty groups, a hack­lab for devel­op­ing free soft­ware and run­ning alter­na­tive servers, a free-shop, a space for mecanics and a bike-repair work­shop, rehearsal rooms and silk-screen­ing facil­i­ties, a meet­ing
space, an organ­ic gar­den, an alter­na­tive media cen­ter, a squat­ters’ helpdesk, a library, diverse eco­log­i­cal con­struc­tions, dozens of col­lec­tives, asso­ci­a­tions, and local and inter­na­tion­al net­works that use the space to organ­ise gigs, info-nights, actions, skill-shares, meet­ings and projects…

While pub­lic cul­tur­al spaces run with the help of huge grants, and pri­vate ones thanks to busi­ness­es and spon­sors, hun­dreds of peo­ple come week­ly to “Les Tan­ner­ies” to cre­ate a tru­ly inde­pen­dent cul­ture and indulge in all kinds of activ­i­ties for free or on a “slid­ing-scale” basis. To pre­serve its free­dom, “Les Tan­ner­ies” has always been run
with­out any kind of sub­sidees nor any employ­ees.

In a coun­try where self-man­aged struc­tures are almost always repressed and there­fore frag­ile, “Les Tan­ner­ies” is one of the very few long last­ing projects of this kind. Hence it has become a resource­ful place and a cru­cial part of an autonomous, activist and counter-cul­tur­al scene in Europe.

“Les Tan­ner­ies” is about putting rad­i­cal social views into prac­tice and about pro­vid­ing tools for peo­ple to expe­ri­ence their ideas. We try to break down the bor­ders between our “per­son­al lives” and the “polit­i­cal world” — an attempt at orga­niz­ing in for­mal hor­i­zon­tal fash­ion, against author­i­tar­i­an and hier­ar­chi­cal struc­tures.

We want to build things our­selves and change our own lives by chal­leng­ing dom­i­na­tion, racism, sex­ism and homo­pho­bia — in the streets, as much as with­in our own walls. Most impor­tant­ly, we want to do it now, rather than wait for some D‑day that might not come.

How­ev­er, “Les Tan­ner­ies” does­n’t want to be a “nice and friend­ly” alter­na­tive that won’t shove estab­lished pow­ers too vio­lent­ly, nor does it want to be some tol­er­at­ed folk­lor­i­cal zoo that would prove the demo­c­ra­t­ic good­will of coun­cil lead­ers. We’re here to strug­gle and change the world, nat­u­ral­ly!

Still, we don’t fan­ta­size about stand­ing on the fringe of soci­ety. Con­trary to the cyn­i­cal main­stream polit­i­cal norm, expe­ri­ences such as ours are show­ing it is pos­si­ble to prac­ti­cal­ly chal­lenge cap­i­tal­ism and author­i­ty with­out elec­toral speech­es. Through­out its exis­tence, “Les Tan­ner­ies” has proved that it is not only real­is­tic, but also rel­e­vant to self-organ­ise with­out insti­tu­tions. We also believe that we’ve demon­strat­ed that our project is not just the deliri­ous utopia of a bunch of kids who will change their minds when they grow old­er.

“Les Tan­ner­ies”, just like all these places stand­ing against the world sur­round­ing them, is unique in its way, and yet bound to the his­to­ry of so many. It sprang out of the dreams, col­lu­sions and affini­ties, encoun­ters and com­bat­iv­i­ty of hun­dreds of peo­ple. Carved with­in its walls are the joys and angers, rages and pas­sions, adven­tures and emo­tions of sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions.

* * *

# Our project can’t be moved or destroyed;
# It must stay in the neigh­bour­hood!

What­ev­er the new urban devel­op­ment plans for the neigh­bour­hood might be, we will strug­gle to pre­serve what we’ve been build­ing here for ten years and to ensure that the project as a whole can car­ry on. It is per­fect­ly pos­si­ble, con­sid­er­ing how much avail­able space there is around “Les Tan­ner­ies”. With a real polit­i­cal will from the City Hall, suit­able solu­tions can be found.

Thanks to every­one for their sup­port, and thanks for the series of pres­sure actions that were done before “Les Tan­ner­ies” got an end to city harass­ment in 2002. Five years lat­er, we’re ready to start fight­ing again to defend this space and build a new net­work of resis­tance based upon the con­tacts, expe­ri­ences and com­plic­i­ties that we’ve made over the years. Not only is “Les Tan­ner­ies” deeply-root­ed local­ly, but it is also part of a larg­er com­mu­ni­ty whose affini­ties know no bor­ders. Be it through sup­port actions around the world, or by com­ing to “Les Tan­ner­ies” to phys­i­cal­ly defend the place against evic­tion, we expect this extend­ed fam­i­ly to mobi­lize with us!

Let’s hope lead­ers will keep in mind the long days and nights of demon­strat­ing and riot­ing that paral­ysed the Dan­ish cap­i­tal in the last weeks, as well as the num­ber of rad­i­cal actions that hap­pened all over Europe in sup­port of our friends in Ung­domshuset. Just like theirs, our strug­gle is a glob­al fight for self-organ­ised spaces and nodes of
sub­ver­sion to car­ry on and extend all over Europe.

While we’re very like­ly to call for sol­i­dar­i­ty actions in the future, we want to start with a warn­ing cam­paign, and incite you to write to Dijon’s city-hall to say that you want “Les Tan­ner­ies” to car­ry on exist­ing where it is. If you want to be informed of sup­port actions and demon­stra­tions, send us your e‑mail or phone num­ber at tanneries@squat.net.

We’ll defend, we’ll resist. Parce qu’on a la rage!

Dijon, March 24th 2007,
Espace auto­géré des Tan­ner­ies,
http://squat.net/tanneries/