On 17 January Prime Minister Edouard Phillippe announced that the government was abandoning plans to build an airport in Notre-Dames-des-Landes, western France, following 10 years of resistance.
Over the past decade the proposed 1,600-hectare site known as ZAD (Zone to Defend) has become Europe’s ‘largest post-capitalist land occupation’, according to activists. With over 90 living spaces, activists consider ZAD to be a self-organized utopia. In the words of a local politician, it is a ‘territory lost to the Republic’.
