A thousand opponents of new Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport protest outside evictions court hearing
Date added: 15 January, 2016
Backers of proposed airport at Nantes want the eviction of farmers from the site. More than 1,000 protesters gathered outside the court in Nantes where the hearing – that could evict the last 11 families living on the proposed airport – was heard. Aéroport du Grand Ouest (AGO), a subsidiary of Vinci Airports, is requesting crippling fines of up to €1,000 per person per day against farmers who are refusing to move, as well as the seizure of farm properties and animals. Around 300 environmental protesters are currently camped out around the site in a long-standing protest that last weekend mobilised 20,000 people for “Operation Escargot”, an action blocking traffic on regional roads, including the Loire bridge. One Nantes resident facing expulsion, Sylvain Fresnau, a 54-year-old farmer with three children, said he did not believe that evictions would be possible due to the strength of local feeling. He said: “We don’t need another airport in Nantes. We already have 145 airports in this country”. Conservation lawyers say the new court action violates a commitment made by President François Hollande that there would be no more evictions until legal avenues had been fully exhausted. He has not kept his promise, and the case has become symbolic for French environmentalists. The judgement in the evictions case is not expected before 25 January. . Tweet
Nantes airport: thousand-strong protest over farmer eviction court hearings
Backers of proposed airport to north-west of French city seek eviction of farmers in case that has become symbolic for French environmentalists
Demonstrators hold banners to protest against the expulsion of the families and farmers from land that would permit the construction of a new airport in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, outside the courthouse in Nantes, France. Photograph: Stephane Mahe/Reuters
More than 1,000 protesters thronged the entrance to a court in Nantes on Wednesday as a hearing began that could evict the last 11 families living along the route of a proposed airport.
Aéroport du Grand Ouest (AGO), a subsidiary of Vinci Airports, is requesting fines of up to €1,000 per person per day against hold-out farmers, as well as the seizure of farm properties and animals.
Around 300 environmental protesters are currently camped out around the site in a long-standing protest that last weekend mobilised 20,000 people for “Operation Escargot”, an action blocking traffic on regional roads, including the Loire bridge.
One Nantes resident facing expulsion, Sylvain Fresnau, a 54-year-old farmer with three children, said he did not believe that evictions would be possible due to the strength of local feeling.
“We are staying in our house because for five generations, my family has always lived here,” he told the Guardian. “We don’t need another airport in Nantes. We already have 145 airports in this country. There has been a tremendous growth in the industry.”
Conservation lawyers say the new court action violates a commitment made by President François Hollande that there would be no more evictions until legal avenues had been fully exhausted. The commitment was made against a backdrop of protests and hunger strikes in 2012.
“The farmers are upset because Hollande did not keep his promise,” Thomas Dubreuil, a lawyer for the campaigners, told the Guardian. “It looks as though the authorities want to accelerate the [construction] process.” The airport, which would cost at least €556m, has been planned for 45 years.
“Personally I don’t think the farmers will leave, as it is their land,” Dubreuil added. “But if they are condemned to fees of €1,000 per day, it shows that [the authorities] want to financially strangle them.”
Campaigners argue that court moves to force the farmers from their land with just one month’s notice could create afait accomplis, as a separate appeal against the airport’s impact on local biodiversity is not expected until later in 2016.
Construction delays are thought to have caused financial problems for AGO, the firm that brought the case. But the airport issue has also become a symbolic one for French environmentalists, who have mobilised tens of thousands in sometimes violent protests.
Woods and wetlands around the proposed airport site in Notre-Dame-des-Landes are rich in biodiversity and contain several protected species of newts and bats.
One, the Triton Crêté (crested newt), has become a symbol for the “Zone A Defendre”, a community of squatters and activists in an open air space around the airport site. If an eviction or new construction work appears imminent, their numbers could be swollen by supporters from some 200 activist committees around France.
“I don’t know what it is about this struggle that attracts so many people – from grey beards to black hoodies – but it is becoming a focal point for a huge movement,” said “Pennie Black”, a 30-year-old activist at the camp. “It is not just about fighting an airport, but the world that goes with it.”
The judgement in the evictions case is not expected before 25 January.
Estimated 20,000 protesters from across France demonstrate massive opposition to proposed Nantes airport
Date added: January 13, 2016
Organisers of the massive peaceful protest on the 9th January, against the proposed new Nantes airport at Notre-Dame-des-Landes estimated there were 20,000 people at the demonstration. The aim was to show the massive opposition there is to the airport, and especially to the forced eviction of the 11 families and 4 farmers from land on the planned construction site. At the protest, traffic was halted on the Nantes ring road, using dozens of tractors and blocking access to the city’s airport, Nantes Atlantique. Protesters say that the €580 million project is not necessary,will be detrimental to the environment and is a wasteful use of government funds.The battle against this development has been going on for 15 years, and has become a focal issue across France, against unnecessary high carbon projects that damage the environment or uproot people. There are over 100 support committees in places across France. The airport would require the loss of valuable marshy habitat, home to important wildlife, and good agricultural land. Some agricultural organizations threatened to maintain an indefinite blockade of one of the main river crossings, the Chevire Bridge over the Loire. Clashes between protesters and the authorities in 2012 resulted in a temporary halt to construction. The last major protest resulted in clashes with police in February 2014. There was a legal hearing in Nantes about the evictions on Tuesday 13th January – with again a huge crowd outside – the outcome is expected to be known on 25th January.
Protests and mobilisations on Saturday 9th January against evictions for planned Nantes airport at NDDL
January 8, 2016
On Saturday 9th January, there will again be huge mobilisations of people against the planned new Nantes airport at Notre-Dame-des-Landes, in western France. Not only will there be gatherings at NDDL itself, and in Nantes but the many support committees in other places across France will plan mobilisations too. These included a bike convoy and a protest on foot in Paris, where people will be singing and dancing and giving out literature. The protest is because the authorities plan to carry out compulsory evictions on the 11 families and 4 farms in the ZAD (the zone à défendre), which are due to start in January. They are in the area where Vinci, the company planning to build the airport, want to start work. There is to be a court hearing on 13th January to request their removal, with a fine of € 200 to € 1,000 / day / person and the seizure and sequestration of property and farm animals. People who are passionate that the airport should not be built are not prepared to see these evictions. The government had agreed they would not happen until all legal remedies had been fully exhausted – and they have not. The airport opponents believe it would make better environmental and economic sense to improve the existing Nantes airport, rather than ruin valuable natural habitats and destroy productive farmland. They want a proper independent study done.
Open letter by ACIPA to François Hollande asking for forced evictions at NDDL to be stopped
December 8, 2015
At Notre-Dame-des-Landes (NDDL), where a new airport for Nantes is planned, there are due to be forced evictions of those who remain on the land, after a tribunal hearing on 10th December. At the moment 11 families and four farms located in the area of the airport wants to build. The protest group at NDDL have now written to the President of the Republic François Hollande, to ask him to prevent these expulsions. The expulsion order is by AGO (Aéroports du Grand Ouest, a subsidiary of Vinci) on behalf of the state. ACIPA says that therefore, the responsibility lies with the President. There was a month long hunger strike in May 2012, and to end that, an assurance was given that there would not be evictions. That was updated in 2014. ACIPA say the families believed the assurances by government, and they have therefore not made arrangements to leave. The families and the farmers face all their property and livestock being put into receivership if they will not leave. The government made successive promises that all legal remedies would be pursued to exhaustion, and appeals are still pending. ACIPA asks how the President will keep the trust of potential voters, if he does not keep his word. ACIPA want a meeting with the President, the waiving of expulsion orders, and a proper investigation into options to improve the existing Nantes airport
Planned airport at Notre-Dame-des-Landes deemed one of Europe’s “Grands Projets Inutiles et Imposés”
November 3, 2015
While the authorities in Loire Atlantique are hoping to start work on the new Nantes airport, to be built over good farmland and wetland at Notre-Dame-des-Landes, (NDDL)opponents say this is premature. While the French Prime Minister, Manual Valls, is keen for work to get started, the main opposition group to the airport plan – ACIPA – say President François Hollande has recently confirmed that the legal challenges should be allowed to run their course. There are still some procedures to go through. Opponents produced a huge beach art protest – writing in the sand: ” Pour le climat, pas d’aeroport a Notre-Dame-des-Landes.” ACIPA points out that when the airport and its backers say they will be “resuming” work on the site, they never in fact started. ACIPA also points out that the tendering for work contract is also a PR thing, as various administrative permits must first be obtained. The new NDDL airport is being considered as one of a class of Grands Projets Inutiles et Imposés – big unnecessary imposed projects – along with HS2 in the UK, a new high-speed Lyon-Turin line, gold mining using cyanide in Romania, and a high speed rail line in the Basque Country. A people’s tribunal in Turin will look at all these cases to reach a joint decision that will have ethical, moral, political value, in the broadest sense.
Work on the new Nantes airport at Notre-Dame-des-Landes might start by early next year
October 31, 2015
In 2008 plans to build a new airport for Nantes, 20 miles north of the city at Notre-Dame-des-Landes, were approved. The plan is to move the airport from its current site to the south of the city, Nantes Atlantique Airport, and build over farmland and wetlands, that are rich in wildlife and have good agriculture. The new “Aéroport du Grand Ouest” is intended to be a “gateway to western France” with up to 9 million passengers per year by 2050. For that tiny number, it wants two runways. It has been bitterly opposed for years, and while it was originally to open in 2014, work may now eventually start soon. Opponents have done everything they could to stop it, including huge occupations of parts of the site, scuffles with the authorities that sometimes turned unpleasant, a hunger strike, and recourse to legal challenges on European law. Finally it seems all legal avenues have been exhausted. The Prefecture of the Loire-Atlantic announced in effect that work on the airport will start, and a call for tenders has been launched. Compensation will have to be paid to those having their land expropriated, and environmental mitigation will have to be done – including protection of water voles. There are still people (zadistes) occupying shacks on part of the site, and they would have to be removed. Opponents do not believe any work can start yet. They say the airport is not needed, it is not consistent with climate targets, and the damage to farmland and habitats cannot be justified. .
French court rules against environmental challenges by opponents of new Nantes airport
July 17, 2015
On 17th July the Administrative Tribunal of Nantes rejected all appeals by opponents of the new airport to be built at Notre Dame des Landes. The legal challenge was on two areas of environmental law, on destruction of wetlands and movement of protected species. It ruled that the project does not pose environmental concerns. This was one of the last legal confrontations between opponents and supporters of the transfer of Nantes-Atlantique airport to the village of Notre-Dame-des-Landes (building a new airport there instead, to be called L’aeroport du Grand Ouest). This battle has been going on since the plan was first proposed in 1967. Those wanting the new airport hope work could start very soon, but Europe Ecologie-Les Verts believe appeals are not yet completed and work on the airport cannot resume. The “zadistes” (ZAD – Zone À Défendre) have been occupying the site for 5 years, and farmers hostile to the project do not intend to give up. Opponents of the airport ACIPA and CEDPA) also intend to challenge with a prefectural order for the protection of the water vole. There are also problems of crested or marbled newts, great horned beetles and the floating plantain, an endangered water plant. In addition the CGT trade union is opposed to the new airport believing that modifying the old airport is a better option.
