Pertuis: No shovels at the ZAP!

Pertuis (France) – This Wednesday 8 December, one of the houses next to the ZAP (Zone à patates) was destroyed. The company commissioned for the work was accompanied by the municipal police and the gendarmerie. This same company tried to demolish the gate of the common house. They threatened several times to come back and announced in particular that “all the other houses would be destroyed in the week”.

We wish to inform Mr. Pellenc, who does not seem to be aware of this, that the four houses still standing are occupied by four different groups of inhabitants for whom this is the only habitat, and that these occupations have already been reported. They are not evictable in their current state, and any attempt to force their eviction or demolition would therefore be perfectly illegal. [Read More]

Pertuis (France): Opening of the ZAP

[Quick translation with the help of DeepL from fr.squat.net]: The extension of the commercial activity zone of Pertuis (84) threatens the neighbouring agricultural land, as well as the local inhabitants who risk expropriation. In order to prevent this harmful project, we decided to live in one of the houses destined to be destroyed, thus launching the Pertuis ZAP (Zone à patates).
[Read More]

Montreuil: Support Le Marbré – Let’s Defend our spaces – Attack the city of the rich

Le Marbré opened its doors in september 2020, since then the marble dust and rockwool has made room for a living space and a space of radical autonomous* and self-organized political organisation. Diverse ideas carrying a discourse against market logic, against capitalism and all oppression , on the search of a rupture with the state and all existing cross and meet in this space. Some of the bigger lines around which people around Marbré organize are housing, anti-gentrification, social struggles, prison, specism, feminism and borders. The place is organised through an open general assembly and happy to welcome new people and groups.

Some words on the situation
We met a first eviction in february 2021, but successfully reopened the building the next day which gave us a lot of strength. Since september 2021 we are facing a new threat following our eviction process. The ruling received in june 2021 admitted us cumulative delays of 3 month + a 2 months grace period + the winter eviction break(1.11-1.4.). But the bailiff seems deaf on that ear: he signed a request to leave the space by september 23. [Read More]

Montreuil: vicious eviction of the Maison de l’Ermitage by the City Council?

We share here the leaflet of the “Support Committee for the Maison de l’Ermitage of Montreuil” of September 28, 2021. Return on a strange practice of eviction in the city of Montreuil, accompanied by a history of the place… Meeting on Saturday (October 2nd) 2pm at the Parole Errante to organize solidarity! The Ermitage is a place of life, of self-organization, but also the backstage of many solidarity initiatives in the city of Montreuil and in Paris! Let’s defend the Ermitage house!

Since 2018, the house at 18, rue de l’Ermitage was occupied. Property of the Montreuil City Council since 1990 and until then rented to relatives of successive mayors, it had remained vacant since the arrival in power of Patrick Bessac, but the situation of housing distress of Ms. Fahima LAIDOUDI, her son and other occupants without housing had led us to squat it. Since this summer, talks were underway with the mayor’s office and the prefecture to resolve the housing problems of its occupants and to decide on a collective future for this house, which should not be sold off to real estate developers, but used for the common good. [Read More]

Lyon: for immediate and permanent rehousing of those evicted from the Feyzin squat

Press release following the occupation of the Clémenceau gymnasium on Thursday 16 September, feedback on the course of the occupation and the negotiations with the prefecture.

On Thursday 16 September at 7:30 am, the eviction without prior notice of the Feyzin squat was allowed by a huge police force. It seems that neither the prefecture, nor the DDCS, nor the Ofii, nor the Metropolis, nor the Salvation Army, considered it necessary to warn the inhabitants of an operation which seemed to have been planned for weeks. Many people had, the day before, left the squat after the information had leaked, for fear of the police intervention. They were therefore not taken into account in the accommodation system (despite social diagnoses which normally lead to care even in the absence of the inhabitants at the time of the eviction). The figures given by the prefecture and the press are therefore largely underestimated. Out of 120 to 150 people counted in the squat, only about 50 people were taken by bus to the Chabal barracks, an accommodation center in Saint Priest known for its undignified reception conditions. If 14 people “refused” the offer of accommodation, it is because it was conditioned to an assisted voluntary return, which simply consists in accepting to be deported. Do we have to remind the prefecture once again that these people are here to stay and that neither their presence nor their right to unconditional accommodation is negotiable? At the end of this operation, and without counting the people who have been lost, at least thirty people, alone or with their families, found themselves on the street that day. [Read More]

Notre-Dame-des-Landes (France): The Mohawked Salamanders Burn Down the Salamander’s School – Why We Attacked the Zad

“I simply didn’t see where the inevitable reformism was coming from this time, discreetly but surely, from those who speak of insurrection and autonomy by the thousands of copies.”
Quote from “The movement is dead… Long live reform”, November 2017.

The Zad was our pirate ship, the mother of all Zads. It emerged in a time with no way out and it was as if the world became a little more bearable. Like a brief glimmer of light, a possibility breaking through the thick, sticky fog of our future. For those of us who lead full and busy lives, off the beaten track, it was the knowledge that there would always be a place to welcome us if we were on the run. A place where the state would never come for us. A place where we would always find allies to feed us, to clothe us, to hide us in the folds of its hedges.

And this very state, which crushes us, kills us, hunts us, was given the Zad three years ago by a handful of opportunists. Those who, only yesterday, claimed this territory as being in “secession”.

This despicable betrayal, which took place behind the backs of those who confronted the police on the barricades, cannot be forgotten. Even less so when the local Comintern has come up with a project for an École des tritons [salamanders'(1) school], to celebrate the three year anniversary of what they call victory.

Rebuilding on the Planchettes(2) then? How can we not exult in rage at this umpteenth provocation? How can we not cry vengeance for the devastated East? [Read More]

Lyon: occupation of the Clémenceau gymnasium for immediate and permanent rehousing of those evicted from the Feyzin squat

This morning, Thursday 16 September, around 7:30 am, without prior notice, more than 20 vans of the national and municipal police, CRS units, PAF (Border Police), accompanied by representatives of the prefecture, the town hall, DDETS/DDCS, Ofii and the Salvation Army, deployed a huge operation to evict the Feyzin squat, the former Georges Brassens school. Since February 2020, the place was sheltering 100 to 200 people, families and isolated people, and was under pressure, threats and lawsuits from the owner, the multinational Total.

No one, neither residents, nor supporters, nor associations, had been officially warned of the intervention. Most of the inhabitants were not able to recover all their belongings. Would it be more important for the institutions responsible for providing unconditional housing for everyone to protect Total’s image from yet another scandal than to respect the residents and their right to housing? [Read More]

Paris: Call for a rally in front of the 20th district police station after the eviction of a squat

A building located at 124 rue de Belleville, belonging to the city hall of the 20th district and empty for several years, was squatted to make it an anarcha-feminist space as well as a living space for about ten people. The place was evicted this Wednesday and 8 people are in custody.

For a long time, everything has been done so that the district of Belleville and its surroundings are reserved for the rich. Rents are constantly rising, cheap fast food is replaced by trendy bars and restaurants with ever more expensive drinks, migrant workers’ hostels have been transformed into controlled social residences, the authorities are sending more and more cops into the streets to wage war on the poor, etc. [Read More]

Lyon: urgent call for solidarity against the eviction of the Feyzin squat

We have just learned that the cops are planning to evict the Feyzin squat on Thursday 16th at 7am. We are calling for a rally to support the hundreds of residents who have found a home there for a year and a half now.
Since February 2020, the former Georges Brassens school in Feyzin has been home to over 200 residents. The owner of the land and the adjacent refinery, Total, has dragged the squat from trial to trial. After appealing the delay granted in the first instance, Total obtained what it wanted from the Court of Appeal: immediate eviction from the site and cancellation of the delays granted.
However, to date, a large number of residents have no alternative housing. Due to the lack of the necessary accommodation places -there is a shortage of 1000 emergency accommodation places in Lyon- and because of the State’s policy of non-accommodation, many people will end up on the street. [Read More]

Montreuil: Le Marbré under threat from September 23 to October 5, let’s get ready!

From September 23, Le Marbré will be under eviction threat by the cops, at least until October 5. Many public events will be proposed in the space on this occasion, to make known its activities and to prepare to resist collectively to the eviction.

Le Marbré, a squatted building in Montreuil for a year, is a space for meetings and self-organization, which hosts daily moments of struggle against all forms of domination.

From September 23, 2021 he will risk eviction by the cops, at least until October 5, when a hearing is scheduled before the enforcement judge (JEX) who could decide to give a delay until the winter truce that was granted in the initial judgment. This would ensure that it would continue until April 1, 2022.

During these 12 days of uncertainty we do not want to be left waiting. Many public events will be proposed in the place on this occasion, to make known its activities and to prepare to resist collectively to the eviction. [Read More]

Saint-Étienne: le Steal, new squatted space

Since Sunday 18 April 2021, we have been occupying le Steal, a former music school in Saint-Etienne, which has been empty for several months and which belongs to the city. We wish to make it a place of struggle, life and discussions open to all.
We occupy this building because we refuse to choose between a growing precariousness and a world of profit more and more dehumanizing, to always more toiling while others amass billions and to rent slums while the city hall leaves buildings to the abandonment. This place is meant to host various cultural and political events and to support anti-capitalist, anti-racist, LGBTI+, ecologist struggles, etc… and therefore open to all people and groups wishing to organize, meet and discuss around them.
We will keep you informed about the next events and we want to keep the communication around this place.
Do not hesitate to come and meet us! [Read More]

Dijon: Ransacking at l’Engrenage

Very early this Tuesday morning, a police force accompanied by an armada of construction machines was deployed to devastate the land on Avenue de Langres that had been occupied for almost a year.
Several bulldozers, excavators, trucks and the DESERTOT company’s manitou were mobilized to try to put an end to the gardens, as well as loggers who were in charge of cutting down the trees.
The municipality deploys the great means. Flowers, blades of grass, everything goes. The will is clear: nothing must remain of what can look like greenery.
This ransacking operation comes at the beginning of spring, whereas for weeks the gardeners had been working to make this place an open and shared place of passage between the residents.

The house located in the middle of the gardens remains protected by a court decision, and will not be evicted today (unless the cops decide to illegally force their way in). It is thanks to the presence of the inhabitants in this house that the alert was given early in the morning. The call relayed by friendly neighbors allowed people to converge in solidarity from the first minutes. They tried to block the construction machines by overtaking the police force that had just been set up. Some people were thus able to reach the house to defend it, while several others climbed on the roof of the house. [Read More]