Paris: At the Saint-Denis canal camp, migrants are “left to die”

By: fawda - July 28th, 2020  Filed under: News

This Wednesday, July 29th, the camp of the Saint-Denis canal in Aubervilliers should be dismantled by the authorities announced associations helping migrants. The camp welcomes more than 1200 people in extremely precarious conditions. An eviction which is nothing new, the “sheltering” or “evacuations”, in the words of the authorities, is repeated tirelessly in France. A problem that the authorities refuse to tackle.

Between Aubervilliers and Saint Denis, along the canal, Brahim comes out of his tent crushed by the sun. He explains that he has been there for 3 months, with his wife and his newborn baby. Like the others, he lines up in spite of the heat to get antibacterial hand gel, masks, T-shirts and a bit of shampoo. An aid distributed by the association Utopia 56, Brahim, desperate, searches the five boxes of old clothes lying on the quayside: “this place is not possible for my child” he explains, “it’s just not possible. Is this Europe? France is like Africa?! My life is shattered. “The rule: one health kit, one T-shirt, one pair of pants per person, no more. Everyone has to be able to help themselves. In the end, nearly 150 people take advantage of the distribution, but soon the stocks leave. There are only too big pants left. [Read More]

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Dijon: attempt to evict the Engrenage Gardens

By: fawda - July 24th, 2020  Filed under: News

Early this Friday morning, the occupants of the Engrenage Gardens were woken up by municipal police officers and three backhoe loaders that had been sent to ravage the vegetable gardens. The rapid arrival of supporters allowed them to stop the advance of the machines. The protagonists’ account of the events.

Waking up this morning, to the sound of the “beep-beep” of the bulldozers. Astonishment to discover the Jardins de l’Engrenage, surrounded by the barriers and the police. The beans, the tomatoes (already red!): crushed, the branches of the trees: torn off, the hedges: crushed. The brutality of the machines, facing the thorns of the brambles.

Sponsored by whom? Why was it ordered? The city? The property developer? Nobody on the spot wants to answer our questions. No one to dialogue except the police force and the steel of the machines.

So we’re holding. Together. We hang on, we climb, we watch. We call friends and neighbors. Yesterday they were there for the market, and since June 17, 2020, to share around these gardens a moment of music or petanque… Today we saw tears in their eyes. Since the taking of this land how many gardening tips, crafts and small services have been exchanged; how many stories around this neighborhood and the lives of its inhabitants! So we resist, again. [Read More]

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Paris: Dramatic growth of informal migrant camp at Aubervilliers

By: fawda - July 23rd, 2020  Filed under: News

In just one month, the number of migrants living in the Aubervilliers camp in the Paris region has more than doubled, from 400 in mid-June to around 1,000 in mid-July. While arrivals are expected to continue over the next few weeks, NGOs denounce the failure of the French reception system.

In the Aubervilliers camp, the number of migrants has more than doubled in just one month. In mid-June, aid groups estimated that there were around 400 people living under the Stains bridge along the Saint-Denis canal in the north of Paris. In mid-July, France Land of Asylum (FTDA) said it counted some 1,000 migrants in the camp.

“And by August, there will be at least 1,500 of them,” predicted FTDA Director General Pierre Henry. “It’s always the same thing, we’ve been going in circles for years,” he said. [Read More]

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Caen: eviction of the squat of the former Guy Liar College in Mondeville

By: fawda - June 24th, 2020  Filed under: Communique, News

On Wednesday 24th June, from 6am, the Calvados prefecture evicted a squat in Mondeville, the former Guy Liard college on rue Albert Bayet at the request of the owner, the departmental council and with the agreement of the town hall of Mondeville. Four families were housed in four former staff housing units, two other families and single people had been living in a former administrative building since January 4th. A total of about 40 people, including about 15 children, were evicted this morning. The Prefecture communicated as early as 6.15 am on social networks, proposing a solution of one week’s re-housing in a hotel after studying the individual situations, and it “will invite foreign nationals in an irregular situation to leave the national territory”! This means that families will either be placed under house arrest at the hotel (daily judicial control at the police station, obligation to be present at the hotel from 6pm to 9pm…), or deported to the CRA (Administrative Detention Centre) in Oissel near Rouen (the one in Rennes is closed and will reopen on 30 June) awaiting a hypothetical deportation.

As part of the state of health emergency, the winter truce has been extended until July 10th. This measure applies to all the squats under the jurisdiction of the Tribunal d’Instance (ten out of twelve squats currently). This squat was evictable since February 21st by decision of the Administrative Court, therefore it could not benefit from the winter truce from a legal point of view. Nevertheless, given the current circumstances, it is perfectly scandalous to throw dozens of people out on the street after a week of rehousing in a hotel or to consider their eviction in some cases. [Read More]

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Notre-Dame-des-Landes: eviction alert on the ZAD

By: fawda - June 22nd, 2020  Filed under: News

Eviction alert on the ZAD in Notre-Dame-des-Landes… the bailiff who had come (alone) to note the occupation of La Chèvrerie (for 2 years) about ten days ago, returned yesterday around 8am accompanied by 3 gendarmes in camouflage to signify the imminent eviction, at the request of the municipality of Vigneux de Bretagne.
Other places and huts can be evicted in the area, we invite all those who wish to join us in these last squats.
Sleepings, huts and camping areas are at your disposal to spend “active holidays” (or not) for free and without sanitary constraints…

Welcome! [Read More]

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Rome: About operation Bialystok

By: fawda - June 20th, 2020  Filed under: News

Communiqué from Bencivenga Occupato:

And again.

The umpteenth anti-anarchist repressive operation began at dawn on 12 June 2020, in the territories of the Italian, French and Spanish states. In grand style, wearing balaclavas and carrying weapons, the cops searched several houses, seized the usual equipment and arrested seven people, five of them are in jail and two under house arrest.

Nothing new under the starry sky.

The charges that the state moves against them are various, including the usual subversive conspiracy to commit terrorism as well as arson, incitement to commit crimes, etc…

Now, it is not important to stay behind their judicial loopholes, but it is necessary to reiterate that direct action, mutual support, rejection of all hierarchy and all authorities and that the practice of solidarity are an expression of our anarchic tension. [Read More]

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Dijon: Land occupation on Avenue de Langres

By: fawda - June 17th, 2020  Filed under: Communique, News

Statement from the June 17 Collective – Land occupation in Dijon as part of the June 17 appeal against the repeated intoxication of the world!

Today wednesday June 17th 2020, despite the rain, we were nearly four hundred people to demonstrate from the Place de la République to the abandoned plot located at 63 avenue de Langres. Armed with spades and pitchforks, the participants were able to clear the land to make gardens, set up new meeting and breathing spaces in the heart of the neighbourhood, plant vegetables, debate the common future on this land and beyond, or share a meal.

This land is threatened by a real estate project carried by the council which, with a great deal of “greenwashing” communication, is trying to impose yet another useless urban plan. According to the INSEE, there are more than 6000 vacant homes in the commune of Dijon alone. Except for the municipality – which wants to grow at all costs to establish its status as a “metropolis” – for whom is it a priority to have more new housing? [Read More]

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Strasbourg: La Pigeonne, feminist and queer squat

By: fawda - June 16th, 2020  Filed under: Communique, News

Why are we squatting?

We, women and queer people, feminists, precarious, exiled and marginalised on several levels, are occupying a building in Strasbourg that has been abandoned for several years. Since February 27th 2020, La Pigeonne has become a squat for housing and organization in a selected mix (without cisgender men*).
As women and queers, we are targets of physical, sexual, economic, social and administrative violence. We suffer more poverty and precariousness. We claim our unconditional right to have a roof over our heads. We find it aberrant to be on the street, to lack care or food while the wealthy one are wasting and continue to enrich themselves. Precariousness has never been a choice for anyone. It is the result of a political, organized and reaffirmed will of the dominant to maintain an exploitable class. Neither the institutions nor the bosses want our autonomy. On the contrary, they participate daily in our precariousness.
Therefore, our priorities are to protect ourselves, to build solidarity among ourselves, to denounce together a patriarchal society and an economic system that sacrifices the most vulnerable. For a social transformation and the emancipation of all women and queer people, we favour initiatives made by us and for us.
In the face of the incompetence of the state, the violence of its institutions, and its sexist, queerphobic and racist police repression that is increasingly violent and systematic, we organize ourselves. We are occupying the space we are being denied. [Read More]

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Lyon: Trial of the Feyzin squat, call for support

By: fawda - June 14th, 2020  Filed under: Communique, News

Faced with the threats of evictions that are likely to follow one another at the end of the winter truce, let’s organize solidarity!
Squats and other informal housing are among the places most exposed to the risks linked to the health crisis. While during the confinement, the State and the Metropolis have hardly brought any help in these already precarious housing, the eviction procedures are starting again, and threaten to put on the street more than a thousand people in Lyon as soon as the winter truce ends (July 10).
On June 16, the former Georges Brassens school in Feyzin, now owned by Total, went on trial. Home to about 70 people, the school has been renovated and made liveable, and is now a place where its residents can live. Let’s come and support them in the face of threats of eviction to demand decent housing for all and to denounce the repressive and discriminatory policies of this government.
Meet on Tuesday 16 June at 9am in front of the court of first instance of Villeurbanne at 3 Rue Docteur Fleury Pierre Papillon for a breakfast of support. [Read More]

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Rome: Anarchist comrades arrested. Operation Bialystok, part of a strategy

By: fawda - June 12th, 2020  Filed under: News

A new repressive chapter of the Carabinieri from the Ros (political police) in Italy against anarchists, leads to the arrest of seven anarchists who are linked to various insurrectionary attacks… and in solidarity with the imprisoned in the operation “Pánico”.
On this occasion, the version of the anarchist “triangle” going from Greece, Italy to Spain, is transformed into a pentagon, adding Chile and Germany.
The arrested comrades are Claudio Zaccone, 33 years old from Messina, Roberto Cropo, 34 years old from Turin (arrested in France with a European arrest warrant issued by the Rome prosecutor), Flavia Di Giannantonio, 39 years old from Rome, Nico Aurigemma, 30 years from Rome and Francesca Cerrone, 31 years from Trentino (arrested in Spain with a European arrest warrant issued by the Rome prosecutor), on suspicion of forming an anarchic “cell” of the FAI-FRI, based in the “Bencivenga Occupato” social centre in Rome. They are accused of association for terrorist purposes, subversion of the democratic order, attacks against the state and a whole repertoire of acts of sabotage with the alleged aim of reorganising the insurrectionary anarchist movement. The arrests were made with the collaboration of the French central police and the Spanish national police.
The investigation was initiated following the attack with explosives on the carabinieri station of San Giovanni in Rome in 2017, an act claimed by the IAF-FRI, and in which one of the arrested comrades is suspected of having participated.
Five of them are already in prison. When the addresses are made public, we will disseminate them.
We recall that in Bologna seven more anarchists were arrested in the operation Ritrovo. [Read More]

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Lyon: Call for donations. Help the inhabitants of Maria!

By: fawda - June 1st, 2020  Filed under: News

In the last few months, a new squat has been opened in the Guillotière district of Lyon. The residents are single mothers, single people and families. The personal situations are diverse, but all come together around the same need: to have a roof over their heads, which the metropolis and the public authorities are apparently unable to provide. In Lyon, the number of people on the street is estimated at around 3,000, including 310 children and 700 young isolated minors. What is happening at Maria is an opportunity, but also the fruit of everyone’s perseverance, hope as a banner, solidarity as a weapon!

Help the inhabitants of Maria!

We are launching a fund in order to provide for the primary needs of the inhabitants:
– to buy large quantities of non-perishable food and hygiene products,
– pay the health costs of those who cannot benefit from social security,
– acquire games and educational material for children.
In order to guarantee good living conditions for the inhabitants of Maria, we must also continue the work that has been started to ensure the healthiness of the apartments. However, we lack money to buy the necessary materials and tools. When all this has been solved, the residents would also like to organise cultural events. [Read More]

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Calais: Coronavirus, housing and deportations

By: fawda - April 2nd, 2020  Filed under: News

For more than two weeks now, France has been on lock-down. With most French people unable to leave their homes, migrants in Calais are still being evicted from theirs. Human Rights Observers in Calais have counted 45 deportations since March 17th. A police union, Synergie-Officiers, has called for an end to these daily deportations, but the department and prefecture still insist they continue. The PAF (Police Aux Frontiers) have stopped carrying out these daily deportations in the city, initially retreating to their work in the detention centre. This just means different cops do them (CRS and Gendarmerie).

The crisis that is the states’ response to the coronavirus pandemic does not show any signs of letting up. Additional powers are being granted to states from now. As one example (stay aware of others) of the state using the pandemic to meet its goals that could not otherwise be easily achieved, Greece used it to justify evicting many families from the Politechnio squat.

In Calais, health and sanitation have already been used as excuses for deportations. Despite a later ruling against the closing of shops and restaurants in the jungle, armed police seized food, water, gas, cigarettes in 2016, under pretext of “sanitary control.” Calling it a humanitarian intervention, in 2014, the state evicted about 650 people because of scabies and sanitation. Neither then nor now, the state took responsibility for creating these conditions for people or gave solutions. [Read More]

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