Notre-Dame-des-Landes, France - In case of eviction : Demonstration and Re-Occupation
To re-plant, to re-construct - against the airport! Bring pitchforks, wooden beams, planks, nails and tools. On the 7th of May 2011 we were 1000 people to demonstrate and occupy an abandoned field, prepare the ground together and turn it into a vegetable farm, which now is nourishing the struggle against the airport. We agreed to defend this farm and other occupied places in la ZAD ("la Zone d'Aménagement Différé", meaning "Zone reserved for development", where the airport is planned to be built, which is now "la Zone a defendre", the "Zone to defend"). Meeting point at 11 a.m. near Notre Dame des Landes, near Nantes, France, on the 4th Saturday after an eviction
NEITHER HERE NOR IN KHIMKI NOR ANYWHERE ELSE, VINCI FUCK OFF!
On the 24th of June, Vinci [- the company which got the contract to build and run the airport -] launched the eviction procedures against eight occupied houses on the ZAD. Amongst it "Les Planchettes", a collective space to gather, organize and welcome new people.
On the 10th of July, thousands of people followed the invitation of the "coordination against the airport" to form a human fresco saying "Vinci dégage" - "Vinci fuck off".
On the 23rd of August, Jaques Auxiette, president of the region "Pays de la Loire", requested the prefect to "clean out " the occupiers of la ZAD "with a Karcher". This call for repression is unmistakable, but it won't stop us from resisting and coming back.
As a follow on from the 7th of May, the occupiers of the ZAD and "Reclaim the Fields", a network of landless farmers, are making a call for a mass demonstration and re-occupation in the case of an (or several) eviction(s) and invite all groups and collectives to support this initiative. If the police arrive to clean out the occupied zone, we want to be thousands again to give the message "Vinci fuck off" some substance, and to come back to occupy the zone and to keep resisting the project of the airport. This demonstration is open to all different forms of resistance and action.
For the last 40 years, the decision-makers have been scheming to construct a new airport near Nantes, in the village of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, to fulfill their greedy dreams of an "eco-metropole" and of economic growth. The ZAD is an area of 2000 ha. of fertile land and living space, that they want to bury under concrete. The resistance against this project is a crossroads of several issues, about which we can meet, exchange and think of common strategies. With this struggle we fight against state control of our alimentation, industrial society and its climate chaos, the politics of economic development and the control over the land, the megalopoles and the normalisation of certain ways of life, the myth of growth and the illusion of democratic participation...
The decision-makers say whatever is needed to sell their project and to suggest that at this point there is no way to reverse the momentum of the project. After 40 years of struggle the preliminary works have now started: drillings to take soil samples, environmental surveys, archeological digs, and an anticipated wave of deforestation to make way for the highway bypass to serve the construction of the airport... all preconditions to concrete over the ZAD.
But the opponents are far from giving up, and the actions are getting more intense: resistance against the drillings, hindering the workers of Biotope [- the company in charge with the environmental surveys- ], occupying offices and construction sites, opening the gates of the toll roads, distributing our own newspaper... As opposed to the ZAD becoming emptied through reappropriation and destruction, the area is being filled with life and activity. Many abandoned houses have been fixed up and occupied, huts and cabins have been built on the ground and in the trees, collectives have been occupying fields to grow vegetables. Communal rooms, a bakery, a library, a guest house are open to everyone. More than a hundred people are occupying la ZAD permanently, with the support of many people from the region and elsewhere, who are meeting here and getting organized. The occupations are part of a movement which is taking various forms. This has made it possible to react directly to Vinci's preliminary works.
In June 2011 Vinci lanched the eviction procedure, the necessary legal means to get rid of the occupiers "without right nor title". Herewith they want to stop the growth of the movement, and once the works actually start, they need the whole area empty: After the eviction of the occupiers "without title", after which they plan to evict the tenants, landowners and farmers. Supported by media campaigns, they do what they can to isolate the occupiers, to split the movement and undermine the solidarity. Additionally, daily police presence and the repression against collective initiatives gets stronger.
Despite this, we remember victories against megalomanic projects in the past, from anti-nuclear movements to resistance against reappropriation for the construction of miitary bases, such as in Carnet, Plogoff or in Larzac, and we know that this airport can still be stopped. We cast our eyes across to the other side of the Alps, where the resistance against the high speed train line from Lyon-Torino is mobilizing a whole valley, where tens of thousands of people are mobilising to resist the works. Here, we are preparing ourselves so that each attempt to concrete over the land will cost them as much as possible.
This callout is a way to show that the evictions are not at all the end of the fight: It allows us to imagine and prepare collective ways of continuing to fight after the potential evictions. It is an affirmation that they can't militarize and sterilize this zone permanently, and that, no matter how hard they try, they can't stop us from coming back. It shows the common will to not give away our means of resisting the airport: the occupations. This demonstration will, depending on our necessities, allow to reconstruct collective spaces of organization and living and/or to cultivate the land. Even though we don't know when they'll send in the troops, we are launching this callout now to anticipate a fast and massive reaction. We propose to meet up the 4th Saturday after the first evictions, with pitchforks, tools, wooden beams and the like, to take back the fields and reconstruct.
Alongside this callout for re-occupations, other initiatives are of course very welcome: solidarity actions everywhere in France and beyond, presence at the evictions to disrupt the police operations,... And in the meantime the initiatives against the airport and the life on la ZAD continues.
\\\\ Practical Infos: ////
- Keep yourself up to date! Look regularly at http://z ad.nadir.org, especially in case of an eviction. The date and the precise meeting point will be announced then.
- It will be possible to arrive the day before the demo for last minute preparations and information exchange. Bring stuff to camp.
- We invite you to stay after the demo to defend the occupied places and keep on constructing.
Contact : reclaimthezad_AT_riseup.net
Infos : http://zad.nadir.org |||| http://zad.nadir.org