What is the real reason for this destructive rage? It is not the absence of a project, it is the nature of the projects that is at stake. The State and its representatives do not support the life forms that are experimented here and now, and for the past 10 years. These life forms prefigure a society free from the ownership logic in all its dimensions.

Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval, in a translation published by Remix the Commons show their solidarity with the commoners besieged at the ZAD.

Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval: The violent destruction of the commons of the ZAD (Zone To Defend) of Notre-Dame-des-Landes by the French government is an infamous and revolting act. The current police offensive, led by several thousand gendarmes and CRS equipped with armored vehicles and helicopters is only the exercise of the purest State violence against a set of collective practices that are in progress or in preparation. This includes their fragile material conditions (buildings, meeting places, work tools, herds), and they  are now destroyed by bulldozers and police squads.

Since the first day of assault on the ZAD of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, the destruction of the farm of the «Cents Noms» was a true declaration of social and political war. The destruction of this place was by no means imperative given the criteria invoked by the government in its “communication”. Nicole Klein, Prefect of Loire Region( 1), justifies the police operation by claiming that the «Cents Noms» had not submitted an agricultural project. This is obviously false: the inhabitants of this farm were carrying an alternative agricultural project and some of them had submitted a request for regularization.

What is the real reason for this destructive rage? It is not the absence of a project, it is the nature of the projects that is at stake. The State and its representatives do not support the life forms that are experimented here and now, and for the past 10 years. These life forms prefigure a society free from the ownership logic in all its dimensions. From this point of view, it is of the highest symbolic value that the inhabitants and defenders of the zone propose the Assembly of Uses to take charge of the collective management of lands and spaces from the beginning. This solution would’ve had the advantage to straightly extend the experience initiated and pursued for so many years: to make the logic of the common use which is a logic of care and nurture, or to prevail over the logic of land ownership which is a destructive and deadly logic.

It is not the “Constitutional State” that defends itself, as the Prime Minister affirms, it is a State of force that wants to eliminate as quickly and completely as possible all actions that could perform the principle of the Common: associations, consumers and workers cooperatives, agricultural and craft projects, convivial modes of exchange and of life. The government wants to prevent the invention of what is a real way of producing and living by using its excessive police force. It also wants to eliminate a solidary and ecological model of life that we need today.

The State shows its true face here. It is not only protecting  private ownership, but it is itself completely under the logic of ownership. It is the Owner State in war against the commons. It must be defeated at all costs to preserve the treasure threatened of the commons.

Les expulsions ont repris mercredi matin pour une troisième journée consécutive dans la “zone à défendre” (ZAD) à Notre-Dame-des-Landes (Loire-Atlantique), où des renforts sont arrivés dans les rangs zadistes. /Photo prise le 10 avril 2018/REUTERS/Stéphane Mahé

Note :
(1) The Prefect is a representative of the public authority in the department, directly appointed by the President of the Republic (and not elected as mayors).

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Original edition : NDDL : NON A LA VIOLENCE DE L’ETAT CONTRE LES COMMUNS ! Thursday, April 12 2018

Translated in English by Frédéric Sultan and Alexandre Guttmann

Images from the ZAD Forever blog.

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The ZAD – Europe’s largest autonomous territory that emerged from the struggle against a new airport for Nantes in France – is in danger of being evicted by 2500 riot police that invaded the territory on Monday this week in an attempt to destroy this significant social, agricultural and economic experiment.

The following is reposted from the ZAD’s blog, you can find images from this week in the same post. Ivor Stodolsky and Marita Muukkonen of​ Perpetuum Mobile, a member of the European Commons Assembly, add:

​”#ZAD #NDDL #ZADResist! For live updates ​on the resistance to the eviction of this magnificient laboratory of the Commons, see this ​in French​​: ​Infos du mercredi 11 avril – alerte expulsions!
and this for English: ​Live Blog: The Eviction of #ZAD #NDDL Day 2: #ZADResist!

Last, be sure to sign this petition to support the ZAD: Comme à la ZAD de Notre-Dame-des-Landes, défendons d’autres manières d’habiter. 

The ZAD: We are writing with the smell of tear gas rising from our fingers. The springtime symphony of birdsong is punctuated by the explosive echo of concussion grenades. Our eyes are watering, less from the gas than the sadness; because our friends’ homes, barns and organic farms are being destroyed. Bulldozers, supported by 2500 riot police, armored vehicles, helicopters and drones, are rampaging through these forests, pastures and wetlands to crush the future we are building here on the to the zad (The zone à defendre).

We are calling on you to take solidarity actions everywhere, it could be holding demos at your local french embassy or consulate, or taking actions against any suitable symbol (corporate or otherwise) of France ! And if you are not too far away, bring your disobedient bodies to join us on the zone. If the French government evicts the zad, it will be like evicting hope.

For fifty years, this unique chequerboard landscape was the site of a relentless struggle against yet another climate wrecking infrastructure – a new airport for the nearby city of Nantes. Farmers and villagers, activists and naturalists, squatters and trade unionists wove an unbreakable ecology of struggle together and three months ago on the 17th of January, the French government announced that the airport project would be abandoned. But this incredible victory, won through a diversity of creative tactics from petitions to direct action, legal challenges to sabotage, had a dark shadow. In the same breath that declared the abandonment, came the announcement that the people occupying these 4000 acres of liberated territory, the 300 of us living and farming in 80 different collectives, would be evicted because we dared not just to be against the airport, but its WORLD as well.

Since that victorious day, the battle has transformed itself and is now no longer about a destructive infrastructure project, but about sharing the territory we inhabit. We stoped this place from being covered in concrete and so it is up to us to take care of its future. The movement therefore maintains that we should have the right to manage the land as a commons (see its declaration The Six Points for the Zad because there will never be an Airport). Today this is the struggle of the zad (zone to defend) of Notre Dame Des Landes.

The zad was launched in 2009 after a letter (distributed during the first french climate camp here) written by locals inviting people to occupy the zone and squat the abandoned farmhouses. Now the zone has become one of Europe’s largest laboratory of commoning. With its bakeries, pirate radio station, tractor repair workshop, brewery, anarchitectural cabins, banqueting hall, medicinal herb gardens, a rap studio, dairy, vegetable plots, weekly newspaper, flour mill, library and even a surrealist lighthouse. It has become a concrete experiment in taking back control of everyday life.

In 2012 the French state’s attempt to evict the zone to build the airport was fiercely resisted, despite numerous demolitions 40,000 people turned up to rebuild and the government withdrew. The police have not set foot on the zad since, that is, until Monday morning, when at 3am the gendarmes pierced into the zone.

On day one they destroyed some of the most beautiful cabins and barns, but yesterday we stopped the cops from getting to the Vraies Rouge, which happens to be where one of our negotiators with the government lives. Destroying the house of those that agreed to sit at the table with you was a strategic mistake. The fabulous zad press team used this as the media hook and today we are winning the battle of the story. If enough people get to the zone over the next days we could win the battle on the territory as well. We need rebel everything, from cooks to medics, fighters to witnesses. We doubt this rural revolt will be finished before the weekend, when we are also calling people to come and rebuild en mass.

Already solidarity demonstrations have taken place in over 100 cities across France, whilst the town halls of several towns were occupied. Zapatistas demonstrated in Chiapas Mexico, there were actions in Brussels, Spain, Lebanon, London, Poland, Palestine and New York and the underground carpark of the french embassy in Munich was sabotaged. They will never be able to evict our solidarity.

Post your reports on twitter @zad_nddl #zad #nddl and to our solidarity action email [email protected] for more info in english see www.zadforever.blog and watch this video to see what is being destroyed:

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Naples was the first Italian city to establish a “Department of the Commons” and the first to change the municipal statute by inserting the “commons” as one of the interests to be protected and recognised as the functional exercise of fundamental rights of the person.

A discussion from Italia che cambia:

“All these buildings were public properties, which had for years been in a terrible state of neglect and decay. Citizens and social movements transformed these spaces to places “that create social capital in terms of collective uses with a commons value”. The seven properties identified by the Resolution are very different in terms of origin and historical evolution, but they have in common the fact that the Neapolitans were worried about possible privatisation of the buildings or speculation. This concern drove them to take the decision of acting first and restoring them to the public interest.

The municipalist government of De Magistris has allowed social organisations to continue developing processes of cultural creation and productive innovation emergence: Government Resolution no. 446/2016 has as its objective “the identification of areas of civic importance ascribed to the category of the commons”. Immediately after its publication (the resolution is dated June 1 2016 but was publicised recently), some members of the City Council criticised the Neapolitan Government, because according to them it would be better for the city to sell or rent these public spaces to increase the city’s income. The Government was also accused of “legalising” an illegal occupation of public buildings. However, Resolution 446/2016 does not provide leases or concessions for the social movements that occupy the spaces; it only acknowledges the “civic use” they do with them. It is still not clearly established though who has the official responsibility for maintaining the space (regular checks, cleaning etc), meaning that it it is not clear if it’s the Government’s responsibility, the occupants’ or both. The resolution specifies that “the person temporarily in custody of the property management of municipal assets identified as a “common good” will have to respond to the principles of good performance, impartiality, cost management, and resource efficiency, respecting the public interest”.

The Neapolitan Administration defines as common goods “the tangible and intangible assets of collective belonging that are managed in a shared, participatory process and that it’s committed to ensure the collective enjoyment of common goods and their preservation for the benefit of future generations”. The administration has also created a “Permanent Citizen Observatory on the Commons” in the city of Naples which studies, analyses, proposes and controls the management and protection of common goods. The Observatory has eleven members, are all experts in the legal, economic, social or environmental fields. Seven of these members are appointed by the Mayor and four are citizens selected through simple online procedures.

Following the spirit of the rebel cities, the Resolution 446/2016 is important because it recognises the social value of the experiences living in the occupied spaces and not only the economic value of the properties. It is also important as it establishes “the recognition of public spaces as part of a process of constant active listening and monitoring of the city and its demands, in relation to the collective use of spaces and protection of the commons”.

To analyse the forms of management and regulation of the occupied buildings, there are already public discussion tables where citizens have co-decision power with the Administration. Each space is different so the required management and the profile of the spaces varies from one to another. They all have in common the protection of the commons and the objective of keeping alive cultural, social and political matters, sometimes even in the form of workshops and training centres for women, children and unemployed citizens.”

Photo by Pug Girl

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Occupiers of Rome’s Teatro Valle want to move Italy’s cultural policies in the direction of the commons.

The proposed privatization of the grand public theater in Rome, Teatro Valle, has been defeated – but perhaps more importantly, the historic three-year occupation of the building has succeeded in achieving many of its primary goals, including the recognition of its demands to establish a new theater commons, after weeks of contentious negotiations.

The struggle was noteworthy because it pitted municipal authorities in Rome, whose austerity policies had resulted in severe cutbacks at the theater, against self-identified commoners who want to run the historic theater in far more open, participatory and innovative ways.  At stake was not just the continuance of performances at Teatro Valle, but the governance, management practices, purpose and character of the theater.  Shall it be a “public good” managed by the city government, often to the detriment of the public interest, or a commons in which ordinary people can instigate their own ideas and propose their own rules?

Beset by budgetary problems, the mayor of Rome had proposed privatizing the management of Teatro Valle.  But protesters who had occupied the building in 2011 adamantly resisted such plans.  Their protests inspired an outcry not just among many Romans and Italians, but among an international network of commoners, human rights advocates, political figures, scholars and cultural leaders.

In July, the city government threatened to evict occupiers and issued an ultimatum with a July 31 deadline.  Thus began a series of negotiations.  Commoners were represented by Fondazione Teatro valle Bene Comune, which entered into talks with the city government and Teatro di Roma, the public entity that runs the systems of the theaters in Rome.

The municipality and Teatro di Roma balked at the idea of letting the Fondazione manage Teatro Valle, but they did seem to accept the idea of it running a “special project” of participatory, experimental theater, with details of governance to be worked out.  But the municipal government wanted to close the theater for at least ten months to allow the refurbishing of the facility.  Apparently many commoners, including the Fondazione, were wary of this idea lest it be used as a subterfuge to get the occupiers out of the building without offering any enforceable political promises.  The Fondazione proposed instead a shared program of refurbishment while keeping the theater open.

The resulting impasse led to many large public assemblies hosted by the Fondazione.  A measure of the significance of the entire controversy can be seen in the support given to the Fondazione by Italy’s former Deputy Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, the former Minister of Cultural Affairs, and prominent art historians.  As the July 31 deadline approaches, law scholar/commons activist Ugo Mattei pressed for an extension in order to find an acceptable solution.

Last night (August 10), I learned that Teatro Valle would be abandoned by the occupants.  My source reported:  “Only a permanent presidium will be kept open in front of it until things clear up a little more. There will be a night sleepover with all the citizenship in the street and tomorrow at 11 am during a press conference the theater will be transferred from the occupants to the City of Rome and from the City to the Teatro di Roma .”

The Fondazione issued the following press release:

“The Valle Theater ends the state of occupation to begin a new phase in the mobilization  and in the Foundation. The members of the Foundation, together with all the population will build a roadmap to face the new phase reached by the negotiation, a phase in which to develop a genuine dialogue with institutions on the new models of participated governance of the commons to decide together the future of the Theater.”

Ugo Mattei noted, “This is an important sign of the political maturity of the commons movement in Italy,” adding that the agreement provides “some much-needed democracy in a phase in which Italy is going down a dangerous authoritarian road.”

All sides agreed to the following three points:

1) That the city government will recognize the “political, artisticand organizational experience” of the occupation and the role of Fondazione Teatro Valle Bene Comune;

2) That the Fondazione will be entrusted with the autonomy to initiate an experimental project of participatory theater, and to manage the theater space in cooperation with the artistic director of the Theater of Rome; and

3) That the theater will be kept open throughout the year and all day, even outside of show times, and that the space will be acessible to commoning and other citizens’ initiatives.

An attempt to get a special contractual regime for the theater’s workers was only partially successful because that issue is not within the jurisdiction of the City of Rome government.  The idea was to eliminate precarious temporary employment, reinvest profits from theater operations and provide special ticket prices to enhance wide public access to performances.

A final demand to let the Fondazione be housed at Teatro Valle was rejected.

The president of Teatro di Roma Marino Sinibaldi said that this deal would be honored only if occupiers left the theater by midnight, August 10 – which apparently happened.

A statement by the Fondazione reads:  “Teatro Valle ends the state of occupation to begin a new phase in the mobilization and in the Foundation. The members of the Foundation, together with all the population, will build a roadmap to face the new phase reached by the negotiation, a phase in which to develop a genuine dialogue with institutions on the new models of participated governance of the commons to decide together the future of the Theater.”

We will be watching closely to see how this bold new experiment in commoning unfolds.  It has the promise of pioneering new models of collaboration between city governments and commoners, in the management of public facilities, and in the political mobilization of commoners to achieve such ends.

Originally posted at bollier.org

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