ZAD de Notre-Dame-des-Landes
Located in the Loire-Atlantique department near to Nantes, it is a very large, mostly agricultural terrain of 1,650 hectares (4,080 acres) which became nationally famous in the early 2010s and has resisted several concerted attempts by the French state to evict it.
[4] After government forces had destroyed 13 cabins and farmhouses,[5]:57 the call to reoccupy the ZAD resulted in a demonstration on 17 November of over 40,000 people.
As the sun set, someone brought a drum kit and amps into the middle of the coppice and experimental jazz accompanied the hammering that went on late into the night.
[5]:58Dubbed the la Chat-teigne,[6] the hamlet included a bar, communal kitchen, blacksmith’s workshops, dormitories, a first aid post, a bathroom (with hot tub),[5] and a communications office broadcasting pirate radio.
[2] The eviction operation involved 2,000 police and eventually the government backed down because of the public support for the occupiers.
[3]: 33 In 2016, Aéroport du Grand Ouest (AGO), a subsidiary of VINCI Airports, began eviction proceedings against the last eleven families living on the disputed terrain.
Amongst the self-organised projects there were vegetable plots, a bakery (making bread from locally grown grain), a brewery, a pirate radio station and a newspaper collective.
[11] When the local municipality demanded that it was opened again, opinions varied on whether it was good to show willingness to collaborate or if it was simply the first step in the state's plan to evict.
Several masked people attacked La gaîté squat and took the man away tied up in the boot of a car.
[13] In April 2018, a large scale eviction operation began as the French state tried to regain control of the autonomous zone.
[14] On the second day (April 10), squatters employed barricades of car tyres, wooden pallets, hay bales and electricity poles which they set on fire to hamper the police, who were bulldozing the self-built houses.
Le Monde published an open letter calling for people in the film industry to support the ZAD, which was signed by over 250 filmmakers, including Pedro Costa, Philippe Garrel and Aki Kaurismäki.
[23] The site could cope with the COVID-19 pandemic in France because it had only 200 inhabitants spread over 1,695 hectares, although the farmers were finding it difficult that restriction had led to the open markets where they usually sold their produce being closed.
[24] At the same time, Vinci continued to press the state for the 1 billion euros in damages it is claiming for the cancellation of the plans for the new airport.
