ZAD — Reoccupation Demonstration November 17th. (France)

Notre Dame des Lan­des
Fac­ing the evic­tions:
Demon­stra­tion of reoc­cu­pa­tion !

To rebuild — against the air­port!

Pitch­forks, wood­en beams, planks, nails and tools in hand…
Meet­ing Sat­ur­day Novem­ber 17th in the morn­ing.

To read the call online or dowload posters, fly­ers… http://zad.nadir.org/

The strug­gle against the air­port project of Notre-Dame des Lan­des kept on grow­ing in the last years. Among oth­er ini­tia­tives, an occu­pa­tion move­ment has spread on the hous­es and farm­land threat­ened. A year ago, fac­ing
increas­ing threats on the dif­fer­ent hous­es, huts and gar­dens, inhab­i­tants of the ZAD and sol­i­dar­i­ty col­lec­tives called for a mass demon­stra­tion of
reoc­cu­pa­tion in case of evic­tions.

When Cae­sar is floun­der­ing…

On Tues­day, Octo­ber 16th the dread­ed evic­tion offen­sive start­ed.  1,200 police­men invad­ed the 1,800 hectares of the ZAD. They attacked grad­u­al­ly occu­pied hous­es and huts, destroy­ing them and wash­ing away every garbage
pieces out of the area, leav­ing noth­ing that could be used to rebuild. Occu­piers and all those who joined them on the spot resist­ed, bar­ri­cad­ed, reoc­cu­pied. Togeth­er, we have done every­thing to stop the destruc­tion machin­ery and block police move­ments … We’re still here!

Our deter­mi­na­tion was strength­ened by a great wave of sol­i­dar­i­ty com­ing from the entire coun­try and beyond: dai­ly demon­stra­tions in Nantes and in var­i­ous cities, sup­plies and mate­ri­als, sup­port actions on rep­re­sen­ta­tion
of social­ist par­ty, Vin­ci, air­port man­u­fac­tur­ers and oth­er crush­ers of our lives…

While most homes have already been evict­ed as well as some huts, many oth­er occu­piers remain in the woods, in the fields, in the trees. New con­struc­tions are already under­way. In addi­tion to the occu­piers, « legal » inhab­i­tants and local peas­ants are also threat­ened to have to leave the ZAD in the com­ing months. This is to say that this XXL evic­tion attempt is going to last. Wise guys from the depart­men­tal author­i­ty offi­cial­ly called their mil­i­tary oper­a­tion: “Cae­sar.” It is up to us show them how the resis­tance against the air­port is actu­al­ly relent­less, they will final­ly be defeat­ed and ridicu­lous.

We keep on fight­ing, we are still here!

Beyond the call to join the area and con­tin­ue the sol­i­dar­i­ty actions in the com­ing weeks, we con­firm today that a mass demon­stra­tion of reoc­cu­pa­tion will take place on Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 17th 2012, start­ing
from one of the vil­lages near the ZAD.

After this first evic­tion round, we are look­ing for­ward to a time of broad, con­struc­tive and offen­sive mobi­liza­tion, shared by the var­i­ous parts of the strug­gle: occu­piers, peas­ants, inhab­i­tants, local peo­ple and from else­where, asso­ci­a­tions and sol­i­dar­i­ty groups… The objec­tive is to recon­struct an open col­lec­tive place on threat­ened lands, meant for
strug­gle orga­ni­za­tion. We want to make this place a hub for occu­piers and peo­ple strug­gling against the air­port, a start­ing point for new hous­ing con­struc­tions, an anten­na to orga­nize resis­tance to future works: those of
the air­port and its high­way (which is the first stage of the project, meant to begin in Jan­u­ary). They well may mil­i­ta­rize the area; they will not pre­vent us from reset­tling here.

Ayrault, Vin­ci and oth­ers — the mes­sage is clear: Fuck off the land!

—- Addi­tion­al and prac­ti­cal infos —-

- Occu­piers from the ZAD and peo­ple from the net­work Reclaim The Fields launched this call for reoc­cu­pa­tion. They pre­vi­ous­ly had occu­pied waste­land with more than a thou­sand peo­ple in May 2012 in order to set­tle the veg­etable farm “Le Sabot”. Today we invite all peo­ple and groups to spread infor­ma­tion on this ini­tia­tive and to join Novem­ber 17th orga­ni­za­tion.

- Beyond a demon­stra­tion, this is above all about a col­lec­tive action that will gain pow­er from a long and active pres­ence of the great­est num­ber of per­sons. Plan to be there for the week­end and more if you can: to begin the occu­pa­tion, to con­tin­ue con­struc­tions, to defend, and to gen­er­ate ideas for the future.

- Bring diverse and var­ied tools and mate­ri­als, over­alls, sound, wacky cre­ations, portable radios, pies to share and unfail­ing deter­mi­na­tion.

- It is pos­si­ble to arrive the day before. Meet­ing and camp­ing spots will be announced in the days before the event.

- Giv­en the ener­gy required to resist against evic­tions by then, and the con­se­quent exhaus­tion of occu­piers, suc­cess of this event depends cru­cial­ly on the involve­ment of sol­idary indi­vid­u­als and col­lec­tives
every­where. We call for pub­lic meet­ings, relay­ing infor­ma­tion and car shar­ing in each vil­lage for Novem­ber 17th.

- Posters and fly­ers to print and pho­to­copy are avail­able on the web­site, and on paper in nantes (B17) or in the ZAD (Vache-Rit). Any finan­cial sup­port is wel­come (check payable to « Vivre sans aéro­port » (“Liv­ing with­out an air­port ?), La Pri­maudière — Notre-Dame des Lan­des 44130 ; bank trans­fer: 20041 01011 1162852D32 36)

As the sit­u­a­tion changes every day, check infor­ma­tion reg­u­lar­ly on:http://zad.nadir.org/

For Novem­ber 17th, we are look­ing for wood­en beams, con­struc­tion and climb­ing mate­ri­als, kitchens, tents, musi­cians, batukadas, huts kits, tools, trac­tors…

For any exchange, help, relays, and pro­pos­als:  reclaimthezad@riseup.net

— Why do we strug­gle? For the resis­tance to the air­port and it?s world. —

At Notre-Dame des Lan­des, pol­i­cy mak­ers and con­creters are work­ing on anew air­port to ful­fil their dreams of vora­cious metrop­o­lis and eco­nom­ic expan­sion. For 40 years they have been want­i­ng to destroy under con­crete
2,000 hectares of agri­cul­tur­al land and habi­tats sit­u­at­ed on the north of Nantes. The con­cerned area is called ZAD, orig­i­nal­ly named ?Zone d?Aménagement Dif­féré? (Deferred Devel­op­ment Zone) by air­port stake­hold­ers is now ?Zone A Défendre? (Zone To Defend).

Since the begin­nings of this project, resis­tances are orga­niz­ing. This strug­gle is at the cross­roads of issues on which unite and think of com­mon strate­gies. Through it, we are fight­ing feed­ing on a drip, indus­tri­al
soci­ety and glob­al warm­ing, ter­ri­to­ry con­trol and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment poli­cies, cities and ways of life stan­dard­iza­tion, pri­va­ti­za­tion of the com­mons, myths of growth and the illu­sion of demo­c­ra­t­ic par­tic­i­pa­tion…

Today as yes­ter­day, the oppo­nents are far from giv­ing up and keep on strug­gling via: demon­stra­tions, legal actions, links with oth­er strug­gles, hunger strikes, cir­cu­la­tion of news­pa­pers, free tolls oper­a­tions,
oppo­si­tions to drillings, sab­o­tages, dis­tur­bance of impact stud­ies and archae­o­log­i­cal exca­va­tions, office and build­ing sites occu­pa­tions, etc.

To the detri­ment of the state and Vin­ci who buy and destroy to clear the ZAD, life and activ­i­ty den­si­fied and diver­si­fied in the zone over more than three years. Many aban­doned hous­es have been reha­bil­i­tat­ed and
occu­pied, huts were built on the ground and in the trees, col­lec­tives occu­py land to pro­duce veg­eta­bles. Meet­ing spaces, a bak­ery, a library, homes, were open to all. More than a hun­dred per­sons were con­stant­ly liv­ing in the ZAD, sup­port­ed by many oth­er peo­ple, local and from else­where, who met and organ­ised there. This pres­ence on the ground has allowed rapid reac­tions against the works? process under­tak­en by Vin­ci. It is this cre­ative and sub­ver­sive pack that they seek to erad­i­cate today in order to start the build­ing sites.

We keep in mind the past vic­to­ries against mega­lo­ma­ni­ac projects, from the nuclear indus­try to the mil­i­tary. As in the Car­net, in Plo­goff or in the Larzac, we know that this air­port can still be stopped. We look at the oth­er side of the Alps where oppo­si­tion to the con­struc­tion of the high-speed train line Lyon-Turin mobi­lizes the entire Susa val­ley, where tens of thou­sands of peo­ple pre­vent the works. Here as well, any attempt to con­crete the land will cost them dear­ly.