Some words on the movement of the "political" squats in France

Submitted by admin on Sat, 2006-07-08 09:00.

For a couple of years now, there's been a growing movement of social and political squatted spaces, where collective life experiences and various public political activities often take place.

These spaces quite often host the organisation of anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian events and activities, "free zones" where goods can be exchanged freely, squatted vegetable-gardens, internet cafés and cyber-activism, free software use & development, independent media, information spreading and book/zine publishing within infoshop structures, work and skill-share spaces for alternative medecines, bikes, mechanics, metal/wood-working, silk-screening, self-construction, vegetable oil recycling for vehicles, action organising, seed-sharing, women's spaces, feminist, queer and transgender practices, neighbourhood pic-nics, as well as spaces for restaurants, bars, shows, discussions, video projections or theater.

These spaces distinguish themselves from another movement called "artists' squats" (which can be found especially around Paris), by the fact that they refuse to collaborate with authorities and wish to act within a strategy of struggle against private property, the state, relationships based on power and profit, trying to build autonomous zones linked to various other social movements.

This is just a very partial and vague introduction, the situation being far more complex. It would be wrong to try to standardize various experiences that each have their own ideas and activities, and which don't necessarily see themselves as part of a larger movement.

Therefore, several intersquat meetings have taken place throughout the past 3 years. Furthermore, local intersquat associations meet quite often and a lot of sharing has been happening accross the country, thanks to specific projects and actions, friendships, and networks squatters are involved with, such as "sans titre" (which rural communities are also involved with), the infokiosk network, Indymedia, resistance festivals, the anti-prison network, as well as nomadic projects such as "La caravane permanente". Existing links have already rendered possible collective offensives such as the one that took place on the 25th of February 2005, during which several town-halls and offices belonging to the socialist party in 17 different cities were the scene of "surprise" actions protesting evictions.

Despite the increasing repression coming from french authorities against these political squats - for instance, the government tried to turn the illegal occupation of a building into a misdemeanor within it's set of "homeland security" laws (Lois sur la Securité Intérieure) two years ago -, it's usually still possible to squat a building in France without risking imprisonment. Even if the law, which usually is on the side of the owners, orders an eviction, most of the time the actual eviction can be postponed for months (even years) in case squatters decide to struggle legally, and especially if they do so on a political and public ground. A large number of evictions also create an opportunity for acts of resistance, which can make re-openings quicker and easier.

Over the last years, several squats have even managed to block eviction threats and to be granted a certain stability after long struggles, sometimes after negotiating with the owners (which itself caused many disputes). That's the case for l'Espace autogéré des Tanneries in Dijon, for the Clandé in Toulouse, or the 102 in Grenoble, which have all existed for over 8 years now. On the other hand, many of the most active squats throughout the last years, such as les 400 couverts in Grenoble, Les Diables Bleus in Nice, or l'Ekluserie in Rennes have all been evicted last year. In the meantime, in Paris, the socialist mayor doesn't even seem to care anymore about legal proceedings to evict people, especially since last years' fires in buildings squatted by illegal immigrants. Therefore it seems necessary for the movement to build up enough strength on a nation-wide scale, as well as to carry on making alliances and cooperating outside of the squat scene.