Here we go, we’re on!!
The reoccupation demo will be on the 17 November!
We are already appealing for communal kitchens, marquees, musicians, batucudas, hut kits, materials, tools, tractors… looking forward for the reoccupation.
All enquiries to: reclaimthezad@@@riseup…net
Some occupants of the ZAD and supporting collectives, who won’t give up. [Read More]
We live in the Rohanne Forest. Over the last two years the many people who lived and passed by here built seven high tree houses and a beautiful three storey collective house. On Thursday 19th October the police came with bulldozers and destroyed and removed the house.
Starting the next day, and with lots of motivated helpers, we built a new kitchen six metres up in the trees, and a new communal sleeping area a bit higher. On Tuesday 30th October and Wednesday 31st October they returned with bulldozers and cherry pickers to destroy the two newly finished cabins, plus all of the seven high tree houses. [Read More]
Story of the assaults and looting by the forces of capitalist destruction. Written thanks to the testimony of many friends.
*Le Sabot* – Tuesday,
We woke up at 5:00am and had coffee together. The cops showed up by the Paquelais road around 7:00am at daybreak. We got the info that the cops had attacked the south barricade. They moved without the usual three warnings, they spent thirty seconds at the burning barricade before getting some paint-eggs in their faces. They secured the whole road from the Far Ouezt to Sabot. Clashes occured at the first barricades of the Sabot. Cops managed to bypass the barricades through the fields and make us move back by copiously spraying tear gas in our faces. Sixty of us charged the cops. An exchange of various colourful projectiles and colorful shots against their tear gas. Cops and officials are forced to retreat, suffocated by their own tear gas, those big assholes. We spend all the afternoon in a tense face off.
[Read More]
From tuesday morning (16th of october), the ZAD has been invaded and occupied 24 hours a day by hundreds of policemen. They are putting down, step by step, the occupied houses and huts. They destroy and take them away, brick by brick, out of the area to prevent us rebuilding or resisting.
Places and gardens still occupied are regularly harassed, covered with tear gas, trampled… Police try to prevent us gathering and having meetings. From tuesday, occupying people and people who joined us in the area answered back with barricades, by blocking the roads the cops use, reoccupations, throwing things, fire, insult and sarcasm… For four days now, under the rain, hundreds of people defend the area whatever it takes, against the police, and plan to stay there. Demonstrations, actions take place every night in Nantes, and other towns. And it’s not over. [Read More]
The ZAD is an aeroport protest site in the west of France about 15 miles north of Nantes. The aeroport project was first proposed over forty years ago and has faced constant local resistance ever since. The project is in the hands of the multinational company Vinci, who also provide us with such « services » as prisons, motorways and nuclear power stations. It is the particular pet project of Jean Marc Ayrault, the former mayor of Nantes and current Prime Minister of France. In 2009 the area hosted a climate camp, since when the empty houses, fields and forests have been gradually filling up with people disgusted enough by the idea of this project to stay and resist. The reasons for staying are as diverse as the people but the occupiers are united by an idea that fighting capitalism is not just theoretical but something to live in practice every day. [Read More]
In this autumn of 2012, the opposition to the Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport project is entering a delicate phase. The response which it may elicit from outside the area directly affected will be the deciding factor for the future of this battle.
To create a Deferred Development Zone, ZAD, (land set aside for major development), to compulsory purchase and demolish homes and then to certify the project as a ‘d’utilité publique’, DUP, (declaration of public interest) before even starting the initial survey work, constitutes a grand scam under the guise of Democratic Policy All this has already been done. [Read More]
Press release sent October 17th at 23:30
We live here, we’ll stay here!
After two days of resistance and solidarity, only seven houses and one plot were evicted at the ZAD, a threatened area meant to make place to an airport in Notre-Dame-des-Landes. Everywhere police forces met determinated opponents, inhabitants refusing to leave their houses, their roofs. Demonstrations. direct actions took place around several locations, roads we barricaded, activists keeping joining the ZAD area, etc…
Since hours, opponents are defending several plots, the Far West, the Sabot, a cultivable land back in use since May 2011. Right now, the Sabot in drowned under a cloud of tear gas, with a drumming samba band. Outside the ZAD, many solidarity actions took place, such a demonstration in front of the main state building in Nantes tonight.
Contrary to what was announced by the highest state representative of the region tuesday morning, the area is far from being empty. Around 20 houses remain occupied, this is even not including house owners, renters and farmers still living in the area. The pressure and acts from the police, such as the destruction by fire from one wood hut, without checking if it was still occupied, won’t silent dissent. [Read More]
Events happening in the ZAD, in Notre Dames des Landes, near Nantes, can be followed minute to minute on the ZAD website. Barricades are still holding on after 2 days of a huge military style operation in an attempt to evict the ZAD inhabitants. The french state is mobilizing an incredible amount of police and military forces. The ZAD is calling for decentralized actions everywhere, now!
English and french eviction time line:
– time line Tuesday October 16th
– time line Wednesday October 17th
– time line Thursday October 18th
Found on the ZAD website: Contrary to what was announced by the prefect tuesday morning, the operation has not yet ended. And we don’t consider that everything “went fine”. [Read More]
Several sources let us believe that evictions are imminent. We got wind of a first wave of evictions on Tuesday the 16th of October at dawn. We received precise informations about where troops will be staying, the planned route to access the area, the number of personnel involved (500 gendarmes). This first wave should concern houses that are already evictable and also the cabins. This should be followed by a second wave about ten days later, regarding this time tree-houses and three houses, La Sècherie, les Rosiers, la Saulce where the baillif chose this august to bring forward the date from when they’re evictable, moving it from november 15th to october 27th.
For the last few weeks teams of police have been around the ZAD gathering information in preparation, like measuring the height of the tree-houses. Police teams are currently patrolling, including some with parisian number plates. Traffic controls have been increased on and around the ZAD. Last Tuesday (October 09th ) the last squat in Grandchamps was evicted with the help of impressive police deployment. [Read More]
UPDATE (Sept 9. 2012): Calm end of the week. It was a false alert.
Journalists sources claim that CRS (anti-riot police) are gahering around Nantes. They claim that might be linked to evictions for the airoprt project.
Since monday the 3rd of septembre, people taking part of the struggle recieved journalists calls stating that 3 CRS compagnies arrived in Nantes. This information would come from the Préfecture (local state representative). They concluded that it might be related to evictions on the ZAD. Another journalist said that before the end of the week, all people that are not included in the aggrement that have been got after the hunger strike would be kicked out of the area. However, this journalist didn’t want to cite her sources, so it might be only a rumor. [Read More]
For some time already, the expropriation judge has been coming under military escort to evaluate the agrigultural land which AGO-Vinci still have to expropriate.
This morning (5th of april), a new step has been taken in their attempt to empty the zone.
A bailiff passed by almost all of the pieces of land occupied by people in cabins, tents, vans and caravans, under the distant but vigilant eyes of at least 5 or 6 vans of riot pigs.
He stayed at the entrance of most of the terrains he visited, he entered into some others, took photos sometime, sometimes asked for the name of the people living there (which were never given), sometimes asked nothing. All this under the pretexte of working for land registry, verifying if the land is occupied, evaluating the « sanitary conditions », of the living space, all the while playing the role of the simple worker who happily carries out his filthy job… [Read More]
In the afternoon of monday March 5th the tenants of a house at les Ardillières moved out and left the house to the Conseil général (the owner). Two hours later the CG had a company board up the house. A few squatters came by and decided to have a word with the workers. Three cops show up and the squatters decide to call their mates. About twenty people show up and decide to squat the house. The workers and cops move out and call backup. The police had their tires stabbed.
At 7 PM 5 sections of riot cops arrived (from the direction of la Paquelais) who escorted the local gendarmes who first beat everyone out the garden and next evicted the house violently. A physiongnomist called several people by their supposed names. Several people got injured. [Read More]
