Notre-Dame-des-Landes Demonstration and Re-Occupation

international | anti-capitalism | other press Saturday January 21, 2012 14:55 by loulou

Notre-Dame-des-Landes, France - In case of eviction : Demonstration and
Re-Occupation
IF THEY EVICT, WE WILL COME BACK !
To re-plant, to re-construct - against the airport!
Bring pitchforks, wooden beams, planks, nails and tools

IF THEY EVICT, WE WILL COME BACK !

To re-plant, to re-construct - against the airport!

Bring pitchforks, wooden beams, planks, nails and tools

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 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").

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
Posters and Flyers in spanish, french, english, german and italian could
be downloaded on : http://reclaimthezad.potager.org/