Communicating in a zone to defend: the case of the Zad of Notre-Dame-des-Landes

Présentation web-2The question of communication in our spaces and in our struggles is a major issue when considering our ability to organise ourselves internally and externally. It is also an area where the tensions and contradictions between our libertarian ideals and our practical reality are starkly shown. With a decade of illegal occupation, the Zad of Notre-Dame-des-Landes has a long history of experiments, successes and failures that we would like to share.

We will therefore collectively present and question three tools that we believe are central to the daily organization of the Zad. First of all, the internal organization tool the Zad News, a weekly “newspaper” of the occupation movement delivered to all the various living spaces in the Zad. Secondly, Radio Klaxon, a pirate radio that hijacks the Vinci radio airwaves. Radio Klaxon serves as much for internal organization as external and broadcasts news and other content daily, as well as information during in repressive situations. And finally, we will talk about the External Communications group, which manages the Zad website, the mailbox and the emergency phone.

One of the aims of this discussion is to talk about our experiences of self-organization in order to share the results of our successes and our failures and what can therefore transcend our particular case and be re-appropriated and used by everyone.