Particularly dilapidated, a farmhouse long squatted by Zadists was destroyed during the week. The abandoned site had turned into a dump in the middle of the countryside.
The site was a place of rallying and struggle. Nothing remains of it today. The Loire-Atlantique prefecture carried out the demolition of the farmhouse known as La Freusière, in the bocage of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, during a special operation under close surveillance, deployed between Tuesday 26 and Thursday November 28. The prefect justified this intervention by the “significant risks in terms of safety, health and environmental protection” presented by this abandoned farmhouse. State property, the site had been squatted for many years by environmental activists, to the point of becoming one of the symbols of the former zone to be defended (ZAD) of Notre-Dame-des-Landes.
Despite the various cultural and social projects carried out by the Zadists, the site fell into disrepair until it was the victim of a fire in 2020. In front of the dilapidated building with its collapsed roof, piles of garbage lay scattered around the remains of campfires, like a wild dump. Several abandoned vehicles – a bus and caravans – were also on site. Finally, the site was asbestos-ridden.
“A new Larzac”
According to the prefecture, this sensitive operation – deployed near other neo-Zadist squats – has been prepared since the end of the summer. Several national gendarmerie patrols verified the absence of any squats on the site, thus offering a window of opportunity to intervene and remove La Freusière. Companies specializing in asbestos removal were contacted as part of the operation. This made it possible to remove 18 tonnes of waste – including electronic equipment – and 4.5 tonnes of scrap metal, not including the rubble from the building and 80 tires. Thursday afternoon, the muddy and perfectly leveled land was returned to nature.
The prefecture's intervention comes as the department decided, last month, to regularize a first batch of illegal homes occupied by neo-Zadists, against the advice of the mayors of Notre-Dame-des-Landes and Vigneux-de-Bretagne. The councilors denounced the complacency of the eco-socialist majority of the department towards environmental activists, and deplored the variable geometry justice system protecting squatted sites. “You have people, on the ZAD, who imagine themselves to be in a new Larzac and intend to live as they wish, that is to say in cabins in a wetland”was outraged in October by Jean-Paul Naud, mayor (without label) of Notre-Dame-Des-Landes.
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