Communique from the Assembly of Usages of the zad, following some dialogue and threats of new evictions

Communique from the Assembly of Usages of the zad, following some dialogue and threats of new evictions

Today the delegation of the movement, during a meeting with the préfecture ( representative of the state at the department level in France), handed in a large file of filled with forms with names on them concerning divers concrete existing projects and those being built on the zad. Today we have decided to respond to the state’s injunction. We want to stop the escalation of tension on the zone and at last be given the time necessary for dialogue and the construction of the project that we defend.

On the 9th of April the government decided to brutally break off the dialogue that had been initiated with an operation that destroyed several dozen homes and places of activities on the zad. The operation has injured several hundred people. It also sparked off a host of different acts of solidarity in the bocage (the landscape of forest, fields and wetlands that makes up the zad) and across the country, mobilizing tens of thousands of people. Ministerial announcements make us believe that there will be new evictions on Monday.

Despite the refusal of the government to study our proposal for a collective agreement, today we want to make a concrete gesture of dialogue to be able to get out of this infernal cycle. Now that we have handed in all the forms and declaration of intentions, we wait for the values that we hold in this bocage to at last be taken into account in the next stages of dialogue. Contrary to what the government declarations say, we never refused to put our names to or present projects, but simply want to keep a cooperative dimension and links between uses of the land. We still want to throw down roots of a vision of the commons and peasant farming that really looks after the bocage. We still want an inhabited, shared and living territory, that is also open to non agricultural projects. Together we refuse all new kinds of selective sorting and evictions of homes and spaces of activity on the zad. The pressure from the police and indefensible ultimatums have to stop. Finally we must engage in a real dialogue about the future of the zad and as fast as possible find calm the situation down on here on the terrain.

We call on all our supporters to be extremely attentive to what will take place at the start of next week . If the evictions start again despite our gestures of dialogue, we will be ready to react together.

The assembly of Usages...