Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Resistance is Fertile- One Account From the Zad

Zad Combatant | 18.04.2013 18:06 | Ecology | Free Spaces | Social Struggles

An extract from an article written by a Combatant at the Zad.

The Zad or Zone A Défendre (Zone to defend) is a large protest site in rural wetland outside the
French city of Nantes. The site is the location chosen by French Company Vinci on which to
build a second airport for the city. The airports building would mean the loss of many miles
of grassy wetland, and displace hundreds of residents and local farmers.

[TW police brutality\graphic detail] So it just kicked of again in the
ZAD, heres a first hand account of what happened. It’s a bit long and
probably has grammatical errors..

My ZAD experience this time has been completely different juxtaposed to
last years adventure. Hitching from Nantes to La ZAD this time a year ago
no one new about the anti-arport occupation where as this year everybody
was talking about it [after the evictions in November the ZAD was national
front page news].

I had to get dropped off slightly outside the zone because the police had
set up a check point on the road. After spending too long walking over
fields with all my tools and backpack. I finally got onto the D281, the
whole road is in the control of the ZAD residents. At first I passed a few
stacks of branches blocking parts of the road, I thought it was pretty
cute. Then every 10-50 meters would be a new barricade usually bigger than
the last until I was see huge piles of tires, haystacks and other
burnables with spikey shit jutting out of it and painted messages all
over the road, trenches dug deep through the tarmac and stone until they
hit water, projectiles lying in wait everywhere!

There is an air of militancy around the ZAD that wasn’t there before, this
is a real reinvention the meaning of “barricaded up to fuck”. Yet despite
this need for defenses there is still a lot of really cool projects going
on. There is still the ZADs own bakery, farm, bike workshops, libraries,
pirate radio, bars, internet cafe/comms van and probably loads more that I
haven’t stumble across yet.

I was anxious about coming because I’ve had reports of the ZAD [at the
moment] being hard for people turning up who don’t already know people on
la ZAD especially if [English is not your 1st language]. This is a bit
true but I think if you have a little self confidence and an initiative to
get up and do stuff you’ll be alright.

The weekend just saw an event called “Seme Ta ZAD” inviting the public to
come for a day of demonstration and various gardening events. Tonnes of
people of all ages and backgrounds rocked up and the event was really
successful. During the weekend the cops left their usual permanent check
point on the D81 road. ZADians and their supporters wasted no time
reclaiming the road with barricades and trenches dug out with pick axes.

Monday morning I woke before Sunrise and cycled the several kms to the
freshly liberated road. People were already standing around, some masked
up, watching figures on the opposite hill. At 1st I was unaware what was
unfolding. It later transpired that people were harassing the cops before
the could have their pre-raid breakfast. The cops aimlessly chased the
figures around the field a bit firring tear gas and concussion grenades.
Then the avant garde came running back and thats when things kicked the
fuck off.

The cops rocked up in vans in front of the 1st barricade and ran into the
adjacent woods and field trying to flank and rush us. Bricks, bottles and
the first molotov came out. In the confusion or out of stupidness a unit
of the filth rushed into the middle of crowd [now aprrox 30 and growing
rapidly]. Two hero cops jumped a combatant and all 3 ended up in a large
ditch on the side of the road. Then the next thing I know our friend has
made it out of the ditch and the cops are getting beaten hard by their own
battons! A cop across the road is also getting a kick in. The rest of
their “courageous” unit have bricked it returned to the safety of the
woods. The two manage to stubble out of the ditch and as they ran off one
gets hit with a molotov and is a burning cop. The crowd cheer.

More Avaliable at thesituationlondon.wordpress.com

Zad Combatant
- Homepage: thesituationlondon.wordpress.com

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech