This text was written during fall 2017 on the ZAD of Notre-Dame- des-Landes, France. Since then, the situation drastically changed when the government announced on January 17 th , 2018 that they are abandoning the airport project. It may seem obsolete to publish this after the “victory”. But, despite the importance this struggle has for me, I didn’t celebrate this victory. I am probably too suspicious and critical about what’s at stake and what’s hiding behind the decision.
In this difficult period for social struggles, the fight against the airport has become a kind of symbol against the capitalist onslaught, as the struggle to not lose in an ocean of defeats. So, trying a critical approach means often being confronted by a defensive reflex to protect an idealized vision. Oh well, here goes… [Read More]
Notre-Dame-des-Landes (France): The Movement is Dead, Long Live… Reform!
Notre-Dame-des-Landes (France): Intergalactic Week returns!
After the long awaited victory against the airport project, we are trying to lift ourselves out of the brutal spring, a season marked by two phases of evictions in which the government made sure to avenge the affront that the zad had represented for so many years. The massive police operations caused many injuries, the destruction of a part of the living spaces of the zad and a long military presence. But the state was forced to give up going any further and entirely eradicating our presence in this bocage. Resistance on the ground, solidarity elsewhere and the negotiation process resulted in a status quo that maintained of dozens of homes, common spaces and activities on most of the land held by the movement. Nevertheless, what we managed to preserve today could very quickly be attacked again, administratively, politically or militarily. Whilst the zad recovers from its wounds and recomposes itself, the work in the fields and the constructions resumes and we project ourselves towards the struggles of the next months. These however go beyond us and connect with others around the world. They concern the collective and respectful use of the land, the sharing of the commons, the questioning of nation-states and borders, the reappropriation of our habitats, the possibility of producing and exchanging free from the shackles of the market, forms of self-organization on territories in resistance and the right to live there freely …
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Notre-Dame-Des-Landes: Until where will we go with this scam of negociations??
I haven’t signed the files project nor do i believe in negociation with a State. I don’t want to discuss with this oppressor, i just simply and only want to destroy it. But still I feel concerned by this process of legalisation that includes almost all lands and sites on ZAD, this area that I see as a whole and not only as my little home, this last one today being destroyed anyways.
We’re calling negociations the injuctions of the prefect, while I really don’t see when have we been negociating. When have we won any advantage of this situation? When have we said anything else than “Yes yes madam, we’re scared, we’re nice people!”? And today again it’s still a topic to go and sign the (agricultural) projects, without even waiting for the ones not accepted yet?! One more time, our famous limit of when will we stop being cheated is pushed further.
Some of the plea that are FOR the legalisation and HURRY let’s legalise appears absurd to me, I stay puzzled between: are this convinced people fooling their ownself or me? I don’t think that we can be smarter than the ennemy when we play his own game.
Here are the plea that are being said :
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ZAD: Live Blog second wave of expulsions
You can see the live ticker over on enoughisenough
09:52am Clashes at the edge of the forest at Bellevue. Images by @ZAD_NDDL
Klaxon radio: If you are north of the Rohan forest, to the Datchacha, there is a a special unit of cop dressed in light blue who ambush people and make surprise arrests. So watch out, do not stay alone!
09:22am Cops attack with gas at the Bellevue camping. Image by @ZAD_NDDL
09:00am Solidarity protests in Rennes scheduled for 18:00 (06:00pm) at Sainte-Anne tonight. As we reported earlier there will also be solidarity protests in Paris: RDV 18:00 (06:00pm) at belleville.
08:54am Cops checking id’s and bags on a field next to the chemin de Suez. Images by @JFrancoisMartin
08:42am A digger arrived at the La Saulce crossing.
08:11am, The cops took the Saulce crossing. Image by @JFrancoisMartin
Notre-Dame-des-Landes (France): Mobilizing for the second phase of evictions on the ZAD
The government has announced a second wave of evictions on the zad of Notre-Dame des-Landes. The operation could be launched as soon as May 15th. We have no idea how large or how long it will be. What is certain is that we cannot trust official announcements and that we will mobilise if faced with any new attempt to pick and choose, which living places on the zad they will evict. [Read More]
ZAD: Call-out for fortification at La Grée
After three weeks of the police operation of ZAD nddl, our struggle to resist continues even as others negotiate with the state.
The next wave if evictions is said to start on the 14th of May, but they continue to harrass us. We are surrounded almost every day; they come to destroy both permanent and moveable barricades, as well as our cabins. We are rebuilding them bigger and better, making barricades become cabins and walls of permaculture. To do this we need hands, ideas, energy and enthusiasm. We want to use this socalled «peace » to prepare ourselves as best we can for the next wave of eviction. We can provide food and sleeping places for anyone who comes to support us.
Come as many as you can and bring tools. You can find the list of tools needed here.
Translator note : IF you do not speak any french, it is still possible to be involved. Just approach someonne with a radio as you arrive and let them know what language you speak, and we will connect you with people who can translate.
ZAD: Cat and mouse with the cops
We woke up early [April29], although we had a long day yesterday. We walked to the cop zone, the part of ZAD that was evicted earlier this month. Today people started to restore some of the vegetable gardens that were destroyed during the Evictions. Different groups went into the cop zone to restore damage that was being done by the state action.
Cops again and again tried to prevent some of the groups in the cop zone from returning to the parts of ZAD that are still squatted. At one point our group was not able to cross the road where the cops were positioned. The group wasn’t big enough to fight their way through. We waited for about an hour and tried again but failed.
After that we went to a small lake and suddenly one squad of Riot cops came into the fields near to the lake. We positioned ourself on two sides, ready to defend ourselves if necessary. But the cops retreated after only a few minutes.
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ZAD: L’Ancre Noire Evicted
L’ancre noir (the Black Anchor) was evicted during the truce which the delegation from the assembly of usages (organ of bureaucratic power on the ZAD) begged for at the prefecture last week, in exchange for some legal papers, the same ones as the henchmen of the state were handing to those arrested last week, in the form of a bad joke that becomes more and more reality …”this paper is the price of your liberty.”
The state, we know what it is and what it does to people and spaces that deny its authority, since it began. The rebels, these people and these spaces (some of which also represent new or old states) have a similar historical tendency to confront the offensives of the State until they collapse, or until their disappearance or assimilation.
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ZAD: Day 18 Early Reports
08h57min : As the explosions of grenades assault our eardrums, and the teargas make us cry, and the armoured vehicles and the obedience-machines [cops] that accompany them are deployed in their hundreds along the roads of the ZAD, the media dare to speak of a “long truce granted to the ZAD “. A fine kind of truce in the localities of West-France !
08h42min : The police vehicles (one armoured car, accompanied by a hundred horribles in riot gear), are driving down the barricades on Route des Fosses / Mancelière from the north. They are now at the level of the garden of the Grée. Apparently these people are accompanied by a sub-prefect. Never believe what the cops tell you : they said they would not come in if we did not attack them. Which, on the part of people who arrive with an armored and 100 super armed horribles, is pretty cheeky. The armoured car is now heading back to the north. Meanwhile, the cops are disking the Lascars barricade. There are about 50 of them on the road, and we also find a good pack of these turds splattered around the forest of Rohanne. No more precise indication of their position at the moment.
They are pointless and noxious (well, not for everyone). I vomit them. Good day to you who are reading this.
08h27min : The cops are 5 meters from Lascars, on the road and in the forest of Rohanne. They are firing GLI F4 grenades. An armoured vehicle and foot cops are arriving from the Route des Fosses Noire, direction La Saulce.
08h21min : Excerpt from the interview of Edward Philippe, the Prime Sinister : “Some occupants have declared : 28 occupants have accepted the hand extended by the state They did it late because they did not believe we were determined.” “If those who wish to enter into legality, namely to register for the MSA and pay their taxes, like all other farmers, then they will be able to move in. The others are destined to leave the land.” “On the 14th of May, the Prefect convenes the commission which will study the files of those who want to enter common law. Those who do not wish to leave the place will then have to leave.” The journalist told him that the operation has so far cost more than 5 million euros. “It’s true that it’s expensive […] but we face people of a very large degree of violence.”
https://zad.nadir.org/spip.php?article5711
Notre Dame des Landes: Quick summary of the repression in Nantes and the ZAD since April 9
This article replaces the previous one (published 18/04/18).
Attention this crosses the information that has reached the Legal, so it surely lacks information.
If you go out, or have friends coming out of custody do not forget to call back!
Detailed reports of the hearings will follow in the coming days.
The Legal Team always has the same number 0033 06 75 30 95 45
ARRESTS ON THE ZAD FROM 9/04/18 TO 17/04/18
60 arrests among which:
– 9 are reported road checks for which we have not heard from the people since
– 6 beatings (4 of which we have no news)
– 7 in custody where people are released without consequences
– 3 people summoned to court in the coming months
– 6 immediate trials (already passed)
– 14 people picked up by the military police with no news
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Notre Dame des Landes: And what if Macron would finally shut his mouth?
Call for reinforcements from saturday, April 21st on the #ZAD at #NDDL
Monday, 9th april, the evictions of la zad at Notre-Dame-des-Landes in fRance, began. We received a lot of support from everywhere and even beyond the French borders. A new deadline before total eviction of la ZAD was imposed for the 23rd of April. Namely, the squaters must leave a territory that they have liberated and defended with their hearts and their deepest convictions.
Call for a meeting to put a beating to the state as it should, here or elsewhere, make our voices heard, it’s a good spring to make barricades bloom. Put on your helmet, your gas mask, your gloves and join us.
They are trying to scare us, but do not back down, let us continue together to build a future of solidarity.
We did not choose to be born, but we can become who we want. The zad must not return to the state. She must remain a space for us all.
Let’s be there this weekend, the party may be great.
Notre Dame des Landes: List of the destruction of compas cabans since the beginning of 2018 at ZAD
It is impossible to count the number of living beings (insects, mushrooms, plants, reptiles, amphibians, birds, small mammals, …) killed in these destructions, or whose habitat and places of life have also been destroyed.
Destructions by the henchmen of the state and its collaborators
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