Nantes, France: 20,000 people protest Notre-Dame-Des-Landes airport construction

By: dolph-l - January 11th, 2016  Filed under: News

400 tractors, 1,000 cyclists and 20,000 marchers turned up on the ring road on the periphery of Nantes to protest the Notre-Dame-Des-Landes (NDDL) proposed airport, and support the ZAD ongoing occupation.

Protesters argue that building a new international airport is a climate crime, adding to and encouraging flight carbon emissions.

But also it turns productive agricultural land into non-productive fields, tarmac and terminals, while also endangering biodiversity and the habitat of 130 protected species. Surveys of the site have identified at least five legally protected species that have not been taken into account by the project records made ​​available to the investigation and related prefectural orders. [Read More]

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Notre-Dame-Des-Landes, France: 9th January – Why you should come + logistic precisions

By: dolph-l - January 7th, 2016  Filed under: Press release

Why did the date of the call-out get moved forward?

Initially we announced a big mobilisation to take place on 16th January without knowing if Vinci and the governement would have the outrageous audacity to restart the procedure for an immediate eviction of the inhabitants and farmers of the ZAD, in the middle of January. We found out that they will be taken to court again on 13th January. That’s why we decided to move the date of the demonstration to 9th January and to double our determination.

- Why is it crucial to take part in this demonstration?

The trial on 13th January is an unprecedented attack against the resisting inhabitants and farmers of the ZAD. It’s an attack in the same style as the attacks in autumn 2012, though it won’t be through a police intervention, at least not for now. AGO-Vinci is desperate to see the official locals leave, threatening them with immediate eviction, seizure of their property and their livestock, and sentencing them to exorbitant daily fines. [Read More]

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Lille: Afternoon/evening of support to the ZAD of Notre-Dame-Des-Landes

By: dolph-l - January 2nd, 2016  Filed under: News

Film, snacks, literature, discussion, pizza, bar, concert.
January 9th 2016 from 3pm at La Ferblanterie

(15 Rue Abélard, Lille, Metro: Porte d’Arras)

Excerpt: For a few months the government has announced its wish, to resume airport works involving the eviction of its inhabitants; destruction of the grove, its cultures and protected species. This is why, following a ZAD call-out to re-establish support committees throughout France, around forty people gathered in Lille on November 25th 2015 to sketch out a new committee. [Read More]

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“London 2016: the terrain of struggle in our city” – Aylesbury Estate and some seeds of resistance

By: dolph-l - January 1st, 2016  Filed under: essay

By Some London Foxes.

This is a small contribution towards mapping the terrain of social conflict in London today.

First, it identifies some big themes in how London is being reshaped, looking at: London’s key role as a “global hub” for international finance capital; how this feeds into patterns of power and development in the city; and the effect on the ground in terms of two kinds of “social cleansing” – cleaning out undesirable people, and sanitising the social environment that remains.

Second, it surveys recent resistance and rebellion to this pattern of control including the short-lived “grassroots housing movement” of last winter, the confrontational Aylesbury Estate occupation, anti-raids mini-riots, and some riotous street parties. [Read More]

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Notre-Dame-des-Landes, France: Call-out for a massive day of action on Saturday 9th January (change of date)

By: dolph-l - December 31st, 2015  Filed under: News, Press release

ATTENTION! Change of date

General mobilisation of opponents to the airport project the 9th January, following the announcement of the hearing for the 13/01/2016 to evict historical inhabitants and peasants.

After the ‘adjourned’ trial of December 10th aimed at evicting the historical inhabitants, and within a climate of announcing evictions and resuming work early 2016, let’s show Vinci and the state that we won’t let them do so.

The movement against the airport calls for a massive day of action on Saturday 9th January. [Read More]

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London: Former Royal Mint building occupied

By: dolph-l - December 30th, 2015  Filed under: News

Update from approximately 2pm: Royal Mint still occupied but security are preventing people from entering.. Support needed! We should set up tents etc outside asap!

Yesterday [December 28th] squatters occupied a former Royal Mint building in Tower Hill in protest against homelessness, empty buildings and the ongoing criminalisation of squatting.

The building on Royal Mint Court was converted into offices in 1980, when the Royal Mint completed its move to Llantrisant in Wales. At its height, the building symbolised the monetary power of the City of London and, as its occupiers point out, has become to represent the vast inequality it once had a part in producing. [Read More]

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Notre-Dame-Des-Landes, France: Call for bids on the ZAD “To build a future without an aeroport”

By: dolph-l - December 30th, 2015  Filed under: Communique, News

Resumption of public works 30th and 31st January 2016

Herein-below the list of proposed lots, updated 25th December

The “steering committee for a future without an aeroport” launch a call for bids to start the public works (which never ceased from our side) on the ZAD the 30th and 31st January 2016, just after the confectioners’ truce.

This call for bids is addressed to everyone who participated in the struggle from within the area and beyond, whether organised in committees or groups of friends. It is designed to reinforce the collective, material, agricultural, defensive and festive structures that exist on the ZAD of Notre Dames des Landes. It consists of diverse projects, adapted to all different tastes and all bodies of work. The construction should take place, or at least be well under way, the 30th and 31st January 2016. [Read More]

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Geneva, Switzerland: Burying the airport of Notre-Dame-Des-Landes

By: dolph-l - December 30th, 2015  Filed under: Communique

In these days of celebrations, we wanted to also extend our wishes to the French government. Death wishes where the Notre-Dame-Des-Landes project is buried once and for all.

Faced with the growing ZAD eviction threats, a small team of artist-apprentices in the night of December 25th to 26th went to decorate the French consulate in Geneva, to thereby also mark down the resistance in Switzerland. [Read More]

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France: Against the airport and the Cop21 – Attacks in solidarity with the ZAD of Notre-Dame-des-Landes

By: dolph-l - December 15th, 2015  Filed under: Communique

While the multinational Vinci is an official partner of the “COP21 Solutions: Come live the climate experience” exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris, providing two conferences there (one of which is co-presented by an executive director of Veolia), to explain to the public at which point their approach is “green”, sustainable and eco-responsible; its Airport of Grand Ouest subsidiary has just relaunched eviction procedures against all inhabitants of the ZAD, to be able to start building its “Environmentally High Quality” airport.

Faced with this obsession of concreting our living spaces, a group of paint-artists meanwhile decided in the night of Friday 4th to Saturday 5th December 2015 to cheerfully redecorate the gloomy greyish SOGEA Atlantique building, another of multiple Vinci subsidiaries, in Saint-Herblain [Nantes outskirts]. [Read More]

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London: Call-out for court solidarity with those arrested at Sweets Way eviction

By: dolph-l - December 14th, 2015  Filed under: News, Press release

JOIN US TO STAND UP AGAINST SOCIAL CLEANSING AND THE CRIMINALISATION OF PEACEFUL PROTEST!

Friday, December 18, 1pm
Willesdon Magistrates Court, (448 High Road, London, NW10 2DZ)

On 23 and 24 of September, the Sweets Way estate was evicted by dozens of High Court bailiffs and 7 vans of London Met police. Nearly a hundred occupiers of dozens of homes were turfed out, as was Mostafa, the last original resident of the estate. Supporters peacefully attempted to stop Mostafa’s eviction, many of whom were arrested. Fifteen now face criminal charges for obstructing High Court Enforcement Officers. [Read More]

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London: Scumoween squat party turns into a riot

By: dolph-l - November 3rd, 2015  Filed under: News

Last night (31 October) there was rioting in Lambeth, central South London, after cops tried to block hundreds of ravers from getting into the Scumoween halloween free party. Riot cops attacked the party-goers with dogs and baton charges, and the people fought back with whatever weapons came to hand. According to the police, this included fireworks, gas canisters, and a “suspected petrol bomb”. One thing Londoners will still fight for is the “right to party”.

Scumoween famously kicked off back in 2010 when the Met tried to shut down that year’s rave in Holborn. Clashes at free parties in central London are pretty regular these days, as the state tries to maintain our city centre as a sterile corporate zone, all profit no fun. [Read More]

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France: ZAD facing eviction threat – call for solidarity

By: dolph-l - October 24th, 2015  Filed under: Communique, News

Some context for the international community:

Over the past month the Prime Minister, President, and pro-airport lobby have been increasingly vocal and clear about their desire to evict the ZAD [Notre-Dame-Des-Landes] and begin work on the airport as soon as they can. The time frame of January-March is recurrent in their public declarations. These are threats, not inevitabilities.

The anti-airport movement is strong and determined, but to avoid the hassle of an eviction attempt we need to show our force beforehand, locally and internationally, so the State understands that they’ll only fail again. You’re invited to make actions, spread the word, have big demos, show up at French embassies/consulates and offices/worksites of Vinci (the airport contractor), in a dissuasive phase- and also to plan in different towns and organizing groups what to do from the outside in case an eviction attempt goes through. [Read More]

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