AFTER VIOLENT POLICE EVICTIONS, THE FEW TREES STILL STANDING IN THE WAY OF THE CONTROVERSIAL ROAD HAVE BEEN CUT DOWN ~  Zandra Russel ~ On Monday the 7th of October 2024 the last ‘squirrels’ left their trees named Zineb and Noguerre under pressure from the cops; now the struggle against the A69 motorway in southwest France is going to have to reinvent itself to stop the deluge of cement. Where the last report left off, the struggle was centred around the occupation of the Cal’Arbre and the squirrels (écureuil.les) had just been subject to an amount of violence never before seen which had led to multiple serious injuries. The level of violence stayed the same for the entirety of the siege of the Cal’Arbe. More écureuil.les fell due to interventions from the police and their Cnamo unit and more trees were cut. In the total, the écureuil.les managed to hold for 11 days under the pressure when they had prepared to hold for months. The last écureuil.le had to leave after the private security, employed by Atosca to keep an eye on the construction site, attacked the écureuil.les and the people on the ground around the construction site with fireworks. With the last tree at the Cal’Arbre cut on the 9th of September, the ZADistes had to come up with an entire new strategy to resist the slow and methodical advance of the motorway and its world. They therefore decided to consolidate the occupation at the Verger, a small house surrounded by beautiful trees and all the wildlife one could find in the garden of a country-side house. The house at the Verger was inhabited by Alexandra, her husband and their child. They were to be expropriated to make way for the motorway, but they held on as long as they could through attempted murder by local fascist militias and intimidation from the state. Alexandra and her family invited the ZADistes in their home 7 month ago and for 6 of those months, the ZADistes slowly started settling in the trees and on the ground so that they would be ready to resist once Alexandra and her family would be inevitably expropriated.  On the 16th of September, Alexandra was expropriated and the occupation started. The ZADistes occupied some trees and the roof of the house. The chauves souris (bats) on the roof managed to hold on the roof for 12 days thanks to arm locks. They held through cops stealing their food and covers until the authorities were so irritated they submerged the house in dirt to build a ramp to the roof. The determination of the chauves souris was a sign of what was to come. In the meantime, the Cnamo continued their assaults of the remaining écureuil.les, unable to force them to descend. The écureuil.les had to resort to take off their climbing equipment and climb on the very thin branches high in their tree to stay out of reach.  Given how quickly the écureuil.les had to set themselves up at the Verger, they had limited food stocks. This quickly became problematic given that they were under a state of siege with any attempts to bring them food resulting in arrests. The only things which were allowed to go through were water bottles and basic necessities for hygiene. Unable to get food to their friends in the trees and unwilling to let the cops starve them, the people on the ground who set up camp in the field right next to the occupation in what was called the vigie had to come up with a strategy to resupply them. So they set up a giant catapult under the mocking laughter of the pigs and managed to successfully launch small packages of food to the écureuil.les. Given how incredibly effective the strategy was, the cops had no choice but to swallow once again the little pride they had to left to chase after a bunch of people running around in the rain with giant elastic bands. At that point, the Verger had held on way longer than anyone could’ve hoped. Someone had climbed in a tree next to the occupations with food to catapult so that cops wouldn’t be able to interrupt the resupply. The pressure was running high, Atosca had started building giant piles of dirt against the trees endangering the écureuil.les. Desperate for a solution, the cops prepared an operation on the morning of the 7th of October. They arrested everyone who was (legally) on the camp next to the occupation at the vigie, some 20 Zadistes, and then proceeded to submerge the remaining trees in dirt to be able to reach the last few écureuil.les. It’s with this level of panicked aggression that the last 5 écureuil.les were forced to descend from their tree after 22 days of resistance. The trees were immediately cut down after. The resistance has been costly. In August 2024 the ZAD did an inventory of all the legal procedures they have faced since February 2023. Hundreds of people have been arrested and put under custody, there are 60 trials (targeting 130 different individuals), 44 people are under police control and 7 people are detained. Any financial support is both necessary and welcome. These 585 days of continuous tree occupations against the motorway have been valuable in the sense that they have led to delays of at least a year on the construction of the motorway, they have allowed people to learn how to resist and they have given us all a little bit of hope. With the Verger gone, it’s a chapter that’s coming to a close. The resistance against the A69 motorway is not going to disappear but it will need to reinvent itself to keep the pressure on this absurd project until it’s cancelled. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Photos: Antoine Berlioz and Gyppae The post France: Last occupation against A69 motorway falls appeared first on Freedom News.