Public speaking of the campaigners against the airport at the tractors-bikes demonstration.

Thank you all for having come to this day of mobilisation! We are here together, so many of us and deeply determined on January the 9th 2016 because a hearing in interim order for eviction has taken place in Nantes at the First Instance Court on the 10th of december and the procedure continues. The summons affects 4 farms and 11 families: farmers; inhabitants tenants and owners. We are going to tell you about them and about their fight which is also our fight,

But first it is important to talk of the context in which this procedure takes place. This context is marked by the COP21 and of the state of emergency.

The COP21 is finished and so are the government’s fine speeches according to which France is supposed to have an exemplary comportment towards global warming and the Paris agreements to be a complete success for our diplomacy But in the contrary these agreements are notoriously insufficient concerning CO2 emissions. It is not binding even concerning the funding of the accompanying measures for the global warming towards the populations who are the most at risk like the island people, the inhabitants of estuaries and so on.

Hollande and Fabius as would-be saviours of the planet...

Whereas this government as a obeying pupil of ultra-liberal Europe keeps on promoting the development of a would-be «sustainable» agriculture !

Whereas it supports an excessively polluting agribusiness which destroys the soils and condemns the small farms.

Whereas its policy supports big farms to the cost of peasant agriculture.

Whereas it allows commercial tourism firms to multiply to the point of absurdity projects that eat up or degrade agricultural soils !

Whereas the quite relatively low carbon emissions are only due to the developping of its atomic energy plants. Not only does the country extend their service life but it also seeks to export more, leaving to the future generations the burden of the wastes and the impossible task of the dismantling of the nuclear power plants!

We could develop many more exemples of the hypocrisy of this political power!

During this COP Hollande had a very good reason to anounce that he definitely gave up the project or at least to reassert his commitment, that our fight had won, to wait for the result of all the appeals before the begining of any work and proceding to any eviction. But not only has he not seized that opportunity, but moreover has the government left de facto AGO/Vinci take emergency proceedings,an eviction interim order.

The state of emergency declared after the November attacks allowed to impose the ban on demonstrations. Unprecedented repressive measures fell on the activists who defied this emergency state.

The aim is to bring the fear, to lock the public debate and to break the solidarities.

Today we are collectively defying this state of emergency. Our emergency is the defense of the agricultural soils and of those who keep them alive.

Lets now come back to Nantes and to the people who are affected by this ongoing procedure.

Ago/Vinci, who obtained in 2010 the concession for the building and the rights for management of the potential future airport, is acting on the State’s behalf via the ministry of the environment. It is inconceivable that he could have started this procedure without having be given the green light from the top authorities.

AGO/Vinci’s claims are outrageous: the immediate eviction, without any consideration for the winter truce, with the threat of a periodic penalty payment of 200€ per day and per file -some have up to 5- and if necessary with the use of law enforcement authorities. Seizure and recievership of the properties, of the working tools and of.the livestock.

These disgusting claims are unprecedented. They can be copared with the case of Mr Ramery. This construction tycoon has become an agrobusiness boss with the thousand cows factory-farm. He is 380 animals beyond his authorisation and doensn’t pay his daily penalties and it was no question of taking his livestock!

All the summoned persons are concerned as a result of the end of the May 2012 “hunger strike” by the political agreement that was taken with Mr Hollande on the 8th of May. This agreement protected against the eviction the people who were living on the site before the public interest declaration Which is why these persons are sometimes referred to as “the historics”. The agreement has been confirmed by Mr Ayrault and Valls and was extended to the environmental appeal (Water Law,Protected Species). These appeals have not exhausted, they have only been tried in court of first instance, wheras a legal act may have three: First instance, Appeal, Cassation or Council of State.

These people, our friends, our brothers and sisters have been subjected to police and judicial harassment linked to expropriation or eviction. Alphonse keeps on saying “I was born here and I stay here!”. Hervé settled down on his father’s land as soon as 1978, in spite of the project announcement. Joël has always turned down any meeting with AGO and the Chamber of Agriculture. He decided to stay until the end with his family. Marcel has been one of the hunger strikers, Sylvie, farmer in the Liminbout since 1998 has done a huge communication job through her blog “Paroles de campagne” (’campagne’ meaning at the sae time ’country’ and ’campaign’)(translator’s comment). Sylvain was charged with assault with a weapon -his tractor- against the police forces because he tried to protect activists putting his trailer in between. He was finally cleared of the accusation. During the 2012 fall, at the height of the Cesar operation, Sylvain and Brigitte welcoming the occupants of the destroyed houses at the Vacherit allowed an HQ to be held for the resistance. This HQ has both expressed and united the solidarity between the people who’d been there for long and the newcomers. The inhabitants of La Saulce, La Rolandiere, Saint Antoine, Les Fosses Noires, Le Liminbout have opened their doors to the struggling people at the fall of 2012 but also much before... They should all be quoted. They all personify resistance. All of them help the struggle.

Despite the May 2012 agreements an excessively violent attempt to evict out of the site the most recent comers took place in October 2012. We all bear in mind images of it. The determined resistance of the inhabitants and of the opponents supported by a huge impulse of solidarity from the people nearby and the creation of 200 support committee throughout France and beyond have braught to failure the State’s police strategy to empty the site. Notre Dame zad (zone to be protected, TC) is more active than ever, other ways of togetherness get invented, other ways of living in, other ways of farming... promissing experiments in the most varied fields have emerged and continue patiently.

Despite Mr Valls’s words, no date has yet been set for the beginning of the works, there is no kind of emergency. A proof to this is that Vinci is signing precarious leases to have plots of land on the ZAD put to cultivation next season.

The somewhat crude strategy of the police in 2012 having failed, a new and apparently more discreet sly strategy as violent is now started : this strategy includes striking at the heart and at the wallet the farmers and the inhabitants by menacing their livestock, their house, as well as with financial penalties.

The government means to empty the site at a low cost and empoverish the social diversity that makes its wealth and its strength. But its without rekoning with the ability of the anti airport to face up to it. Today we all are struggling farmers and resisting inhabitants!

Our resistance is fertile and it draw its creativity in our differences. We become the echo of a mixed population people that gets united against the absurdity of the world... Nous are getting ready to provide for all eventualities!

Our ability to react is a major asset. Though the audience was announced only 3 days in advance, there were many of us at the Court on the 10th of december. We have then arranged a mobilization on the 16th of January on the ring road of Nantes. AGO obtained a new audience on the 13th and here we are on the 9th!were !

Our deterination is unfailing. We did tell them : “We won’t let go of anything!”

This summary proceeding/proceeding for interim relief/interim measure (?) is not only threatening the assigned person but also all the occupants of the site, and all the opponants of the big useless projects forced on the people!

This measure is aimed at living places full of solidarity, organisation where other worlds are invented, with people who refuse this world with its concrete constructions, its profits and its terror.

In this way this eviction “refere” threatens all of us!!!

We have in view the withdrawal of the project of the airport and without any delay the withdrawal of the proceedure against the historic inhabitants of the site. AGO must withdraw from any claim for eviction.!

À l’appel des composantes de la lutte contre l’aéroport :

des membres de la Coordination (ACIPA, ADECA, Agissons Pour l’Avenir, ATTAC, CANVA, CéDpa, CELA,

Confédération Paysanne 44, décroissanceS-MOC, GAB44, PG44, NPA, UD44 Solidaires, EELV, ENSEMBLE !,

Nature-Avenir, Natur-Action, OBSLAB, Vertou Écologie Solidarité, Sèvre Propre 2015, Solidarités Écologie), le

COPAIn, Naturalistes en lutte, des habitant-e-s de la ZAD, des comités de soutien...