Calais: CMS callout to come and crack buildings

By: dolph-l - October 15th, 2013  Filed under: News
Winter is coming, shelter is a priority in Calais. The police have evicted and destroyed almost our shelter – buildings, camps, tents – in the past weeks.

There are empty buildings all over Calais town. We need people to come and open and secure them! We need people with skills and energy to join and support our resistance to this border.

Calais Migrant Solidarity have squatted a social centre, as it gets colder, more and more people are trying to sleep in it. Whilst we try to keep it a safe space for vulnerable people and people working on the ground, it’s getting over filled.

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Notre-Dame-des-Landes (France): Call for decentralised action for the first anniversary of ZAD evictions

By: dolph-l - October 14th, 2013  Filed under: Press release

Unedited translation of Press Release from the ZAD:

19 October 2013: Protest anniversary of evictions. 14H instead Brittany, Nantes

The signatories of this statement calling for a big event October 19, 2013 at 14H, instead Bertagne in Nantes.This is part of the first anniversary against evictions last fall, the failed operation to demolish the ZAD called “Caesar” to those hard-housed occupying the space LU various places since then.

Evictions on ZAD

October 16, 2012 in the morning, the state kicked off the Caesar operation to remove and destroy the places occupied the ZAD of Notre Dame des Landes in opposition to the airport project.

At 10:30 on the field with his troops, the prefect of the Loire-Atlantique said that the operation was completed successfully and that the military occupation of the ZAD would last “a few days” to complete the destruction of homes. Given the resistance that is organized and developed, taking many forms there and everywhere, facing external solidarity ZAD who provided logistical, political and moral support, these “few days” have become months .. . ZAD is always busy! [Read More]

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Calais: Beer house and other squats evicted this month so far + people needed in solidarity

By: dolph-l - September 21st, 2013  Filed under: News

So far the month of September has seen:

Eviction of the Beer House squat where around one to two-hundreed Africans and Syrians had been living for the last year.

Three immediate evictions of the big squats where those people had been seeking shelter in the nights following the eviction.

Complete destruction of the Sudanese jungle with around twenty arrests.

Police and city workers destroyed all the tents they could find, while taking the blankets and personal things to the to city dump. There they were mixed together with what rotting materials were left inside the Beer House. Everything would have been immediately destroyed if it weren’t for people going to the dump to take them back that day. [Read More]

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Calais (France): Call out for active solidarity

By: xxx - September 7th, 2013  Filed under: News

Urgent Call out for Calais!

A big squat in Calais was emptied of its occupants Thursday.

Today they tried to occupy the old hospital that has been empty for some years:
They were expelled in this afternoon, and twenty people were arrested.

Many migrants are in the street and looking for a place to shelter.

Many evictions of living spaces are planned in the coming days.

The people of Calais are making a desperate appeal to activists reinforcements quickly.
The tension is high! [Read More]

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France: L´Oukaze, a new autonomous space in Bègles

By: fawda - September 5th, 2013  Filed under: News
Oukaze_squatted_autonomous_space_Bègles_Bordeaux

Five people meet in and feel political affinity – and loads of energy. They open a new legal squat in Bègles, a suburb of Bordeaux … and are allowed to stay; even untill next spring as it seems now! A utopian story of the birth of a new autonomous space. Let´s see what the Oukaze has become now, several months after it came to life in february.

The gate to the new squat which is in a massive beautiful old villa with a garden is closed. It is metal black, on the outside you see flyers and little pieces of street art – and inside you will see even more of it. There is a bell and you can shout as well. It´s easy to enter, someone will always open.
The entry to the magic villa is made acessible with a ramp, words of welcome are written on it. And inside you will see dark wooden floors, loads of stencils, pictures, decorations, banners – all put together it makes it feel like a very cosy art gallery, all ready for interaction with the oevre, all ready to be changed and cosy comfy seats inviting the spectator to stay and become part of it. [Read More]

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Eviction of new “Legal” Squat in Calais.

By: midnight - July 27th, 2013  Filed under: News

On Wednesday morning banners were dropped from a disused building belonging to the State on Rue de Quatre Coins reading ‘A Roof is a Right’ and ‘This is a legal squat’. The building had been occupied for many days beforehand, although clandestinely, and being safely past the 48 hour point, after which the police cannot enter or evict without a court order by French law, the occupants decided to make their occupation public. Police Nationale arrived shortly after but then left again to return with more police, but did not try to enter seemingly understanding their legal position and respecting the rights of those inside. A representative from the town hall also showed up, as well as a police forensics technician, who both took pictures of the door (and the legal notice that had been taped to it) but did not find anything to have been damaged and left again.

However, the next day at 7:30 AM around thirty PAF arrived and forced entry into the building by breaking the front door and climbing in an upper story window. Three people who were inside were arrested and taken to Coquelle, where they were held without food for ten hours, but then released without any charge or summons despite refusing to cooperate with police or identify themselves.

[Read More]

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Calais (France): Squat on Victor Hugo served papers

By: midnight - July 27th, 2013  Filed under: News

Occupied now for a month and a half, the squat on Boulevard Victor Hugo was visited by the city bailiff and a vanload of CRS yesterday so that they could take the name on the house and begin legal proceedings.

One week after the beginning of the occupation, the Assistant Mayor Phillippe Mignonet showed up with police and used obvious demagogy to try and convince us of our illegitimacy, but without actually being able to do anything. The politician (who holds extremely right wing views and celebrates repression against migrants in general) told us, “I will make your life hell. It’s not a threat, it’s a promise!”

Although this may be his intention, he is in fact completely impotent in the face of our occupation. This was acknowledged by the article in the Nord Littoral newspaper entitled ‘Un groupe de No Borders indélogeable’, which stated that despite the passage of the police and the municipality it’s impossible to dislodge the squatters after 48 hours of occupation without going through a legal process. [Read More]

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Calais: Global No Border squat on Rue Caillette safe for now

By: midnight - July 20th, 2013  Filed under: News

Today (June 18) the court in Calais declared the municipality’s request for the eviction of the squat on Rue Caillette “unreceivable” for procedural reasons. This means that the city will have to resubmit and argue their case all over again before being able to evict, giving those living there more valuable time before being forced back onto Calais’ streets. Here is an open letter which was submitted for the defence by the occupants.

The ineptitude of the municipality in how they handled this case has been surprising although very welcome. Apparently, when forced to respect the law and abide by procedure the city does not know what to do, having gotten so accustomed to breaking down doors and throwing people out over the years (old habits die hard). [Read More]

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Calais: Squatting case adjourned

By: sisulscz - June 19th, 2013  Filed under: News

The UK and French government have been trying to ‘free’ Calais of migrants for years through a strategy of tight surveillance at the border and relentless harassment by the police in town.

In Calais undocumented people, asylum seekers and refugees sleep wherever they can find shelter : in abandoned buildings, under bridges, in parks or the jungles in and around town. Evictions are frequent, leaving people of all ages to sleep rough.
[Read More]

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Calais (France): Egyptian squat demolished and destroyed

By: fawda - May 22nd, 2013  Filed under: News
Calais_evicted_house1

An Egyptian squat was evicted this morning and demolished instantly. The squat has been home to about 30 people for the last 6 months+, with sometimes 50+ people living crammed together during the winter period.
Everyone was made to leave the building at about 9am this morning, taking with them what they could instantly carry. The rest was taken by city workers to the dump.

This was the last remaining squat amongst a demolished street by old Africa House on rue Descartes. It is no longer just a matter of raids and evictions… now systematic demolitions are becoming the norm.
It seems these demolitions must be part of a wider centralised planning effort by the town hall, as a more systematic attack to eradicate people’s means of shelter. [Read More]

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Notre-Dame-des-Landes, France: ZAD update

By: Rosa - April 23rd, 2013  Filed under: News

So it just kicked of again in the ZAD, heres a first hand account of what happened. It’s a bit long and probably has grammatical errors.. My ZAD experience this time has been completely different juxtaposed to last years adventure. Hitching from Nantes to La ZAD this time a year ago no one new about the anti-arport occupation where as this year everybody was talking about it [after the evictions in November the ZAD was national front page news]. I had to get dropped off slightly outside the zone because the police had set up a check point on the road. After spending too long walking over fields with all my tools and backpack. I finally got onto the D281, the whole road is in the control of the ZAD residents. At first I passed a few stacks of branches blocking parts of the road, I thought it was pretty cute. Then every 10-50 meters would be a new barricade usually bigger than the last until I was see huge piles of tires, haystacks and other burnables with spikey shit jutting out of it and painted messages all over the road, trenches dug deep through the tarmac and stone until they hit water, projectiles lying in wait everywhere!

[Read More]

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Calais: Police break-in to squat to serve bailiff’s court papers

By: Rosa - April 23rd, 2013  Filed under: News

At around 2.30pm a bailiff arrived at a squat near the theatre accompanied with around 25+ Police Nationale and PAF, supposedly – the bailiff said – just to serve court papers on the squat. Instead of posting the court papers through the letterbox, they smashed the bottom half of the front door from the outside. Again breaking an entry without a court order. Most of the cops entered the building, taking pictures and asking all non-european people their name and nationality. Racist profiling once more. There was about 40 people in the house… many from Sudan, Syria, Eqypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan etc. After around one hour, the cops left the building.

[Read More]

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