Briançon: come to support the new squat

A squat opened in Briançon (France) on Monday, August 7: the Pado, to meet a need for accommodation in the Briançonnais; The institutional and associative structures are currently more than full. We have the idea and the hope to be able to offer a new place of residence for undocumented people, in more livable conditions, because the building is large and made to accommodate many people. For the moment we have neither water nor electricity because they were illegally cut off during a costly action carried out by the council, the national police and the electricity company EDSB, aimed at destroying the electrical infrastructure upstream of the building. They chose to make the building unlivable rather than evict us, forcing us to live in precarious conditions to abandon this place.
We reaffirm the relevance of initiatives outside the institutional or associative framework, as they are too narrow to respond to the scale and complexity of the situation. [Read More]

Susa Valley: Passamontagna, camping against the borders

4-5-6 August 2023, travelling NoBorder Camp in Susa Valley, Italy https://squ.at/r/9jj2
Place: Susa Valley – Claviere (ITA) – Briancon (FR)
Three days of traversing the mountains together for a world without borders and authoritarianism!
Three days of encounters, discussions and reflection.
Three days of collective struggle and solidarity.

The Border Machinery
The policies of the European Union and its member states continue to make it deadlier to reach Fortress Europe. Both at sea and in transit countries such as Turkey, Libia and now Tunisia, death is the currency being dealt to those seeking out a better life. The border is enforced internally and externally; having shifted as far south as the Sahel and as far east as Kurdistan.

The Frontex budget is exploding, having risen from €93 Million to €845 million (2023) in just ten years. In the same time frame, the length of EU border fences have grown from 315 km to 2048 km. Novel technologies and intense militarization of the borders have kept arms & technology producers’ profits soaring. Those who manage to reach the shores of Europe are kept in servitude, picking the fruit and vegetables for discounters and slaving away in the factories and brothels. They are promised a shot at climbing the ladder, kept as human capital in the service of the economy with the hopes of achieving the golden ticket; asylum or even residence. [Read More]

Susa Valley: barricading weekend on the border

October 01-03, weekend to build barricades at the occupied house on the border, we want to invite anyone interested to give us a hand to make the house safer, before winter! We are waiting for you !
Yallah, the autonomous occupied shelter, is in Cesana-Torinese, between Oulx and Claviere, Italy. This house is owned by Enel, the main company that manages the production but above all distribution of electricity in Italy and of course they are not very happy to have us here.
An eviction could take place at any time. Since there is always a lot to do here en not always enough skills, we want to invite anyone interested to come and spend a weekend with us at Yallah, help us to make the house safer and sharing dinners together! We have some building materials and tools, but it would be nice if more were brought in! [Read More]

Rotterdam: No Border Camp 2022 has started

Week of actions and workshops against repressive border and migration policies

Rotterdam, 8 August 2022 – At 10 am this morning the No Border Camp 2022 has started at the Giessenweg 25 in Rotterdam. Over the coming week, hundreds of international activists will gather for actions, meetings, workshops, discussion and culture in the context of the struggle for a world without borders and freedom of movement for all. The international ‘Abolish Frontex’ campaign is an important spearhead of the camp.

The camp, including its actions and workshops, will call attention to the repressive and militarised Dutch and EU border and migration policies, at a time they reach new heights with walls, racism, violence and pushbacks at and beyond the borders. ‘The No Border Camp will bring people together to build a movement to resist the appalling, racist European border policies and take action against its profiteers, such as arms companies ‘, according to Noah of the organisation of the camp. [Read More]

Rotterdam: ‘Abolish Frontex’ – International No Border Camp

The No Border Camp will take place in Rotterdam! We will start on Monday morning the 8th of august at 10:00 by building up the camp. The exact location we will specify at that time. Make sure you are in or around the city and keep an eye on radar and website! Monday morning at 10:00 we will publish the exact location. We hope as many people as possible will show up as soon as possible to help us build the camp. Beware: there is a chance the police will be present and they will try and stop us. Be prepared for this. Take your bike (or other means of transportation) to make sure you can move around. See you Monday!

From Tuesday to Friday there will be a program of workshops, discussions and presentations. Next to the workshops below, there is plenty of room for ad hoc meetings, spontaneous workshops and other activities. The Sahara tent is always available for this, the We Are Here tent when there is no workshop scheduled. If you want to do something, please add this to the timetable on the tents. If you need help with something, please come to the entrance stand.

Workshops will be in English, unless noted otherwise. We’ll do our best to have people to do whisper translation available for each workshop. [Read More]

Susa Valley: new squatted shelter in Cesana-Torinese

In almost a year since the last eviction of the Casa Cantoniera in Claviere, we stayed here, in this valley, on this bloody and racist border, close to the people who challenge and overcome it every day, despite being forced to do so “illegally”: controlled, rejected and violated by the state and its armed forces. In the same valley where thousands of “migrants” with “the good papers”, called tourists, transit undisturbed. In the same valley where only in January this year the border killed two people, Fatallah Belhafif and Ullah Rezwan.

As of today, we return to organize in a place that has been abandoned for decades, which now belongs to nobody but lives thanks to the people who inhabit, build and self-manage it, in opposition to one and all states and laws that would like to repress any form of collective and individual autonomy. [Read More]

Calais: “We will not let ourselves be taken away!”

Statement from Housing for All Calais

Since Friday 4 February, we have been occupying a building in Rue d’Ajaccio, which has been uninhabited for a year. This occupation took place within the framework of the commemoraction, an international day of mobilization initiated by the families and relatives of people who have died at the border, to denounce the murderous migration policies of the UK, France and the EU.

In Calais, about 1500 people are living on the streets in unacceptable living conditions. Displaced people occupy wastelands and have no access to basic services: housing, sanitation, water, food and medical care. The state imposes conditions of extreme precariousness and invisibility through illegal evictions every 48 hours, the theft of personal belongings by the police, the illegal dismantling of living sites without the possibility of defense in front of a judge, and recurrent police violence. The French and British governments, alongside Natacha Bouchard and all their other friends, have deliberately turned a political issue into a humanitarian crisis, keeping people who want to cross the border in a context of survival. [Read More]

Calais: Communiqué from Housing for All Calais

Housing is a right, even in Calais.

We are a group of people from different countries fighting for everyone’s right to dignified and safe housing. We are currently occupying, for over 48 hours, some of the many buildings in the city of Calais that sit empty and wasted while people sleep on the streets.

We occupy these spaces hoping to break the vicious cycle of state and police violence and dehumanisation that continues in Calais and across the world to enforce national borders. We aim to create an open space free from state violence and discrimination, where someone’s administrative status has no impact on their ability to have their basic needs met, experience solidarity, and live in dignity. [Read More]

Brussels: call out, imminent eviction KBC occupation

Solidarity rally, Monday 13 December, 14:00
Press release of the Collective Zone Neutre, KBC Occupation

Since last July, thousands of refugees are blocked in Belarus at the gates of Poland. Pushed on one side by the Belarusian forces and on the other by the Polish authorities, without any European intervention to put an end to this tragedy. Hundreds of migrants find themselves in the streets of Brussels, without any help or resources from the competent authorities.
In recent years, several organizations have had to file a series of lawsuits against illegal instructions or practices of the Belgian state in terms of reception. While undocumented citizens and activists take care of finding housing solutions for hundreds of migrants, through actions of occupation of empty houses. While political administrators wash their hands of it. [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]

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]

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]