For seven years, tens of thousands of people (From La Manche, Mayenne, Ille-et-Vilaine and Calvados) live with the sword of Damocles of a Very High Voltage line scheduled to be installed between Raids (50) and Beaulieu (53).

Since December 2011, the pylon construction sites have started and with them the violence of the state and RTE (forced signatures, destruction work employed legally or not, etc …). Given this situation, many individuals have decided that the time has come to do direct action to try and stop this “steamroller” . They are calling on each and everyone of you out there to participate with the means that you deem appropriate, to interfere with the progression of the sites. The reasons we are forced into these practices is that popular opposition to this project has, since the project has begun, been met only with contempt and arrogance on the part of the state and RTE. Everyone will understand that there was nothing to expect from these institutions. It is only by organising ourselves with our ways that we can curb the omnipotence of the state. The inhabitants of Val di Susa in Italy, fighting against the construction of the TGV Lyon-Turin, have long understood. They have succeeded in seriously slowing down the destruction of their valley.

Since 14 January 2012 and the public meeting in Coutances, which followed the action of disturbance of the convoy of radioactive waste in Valognes, assemblies have been held around the village of Chefresne (50), which has resisted for years against this project of power lines. This assembly, composed of as many people close to the project as individuals struggling against all the political management of our lives through land use planning, assumes the entire legacy of the action of Valognes, both in practice struggles, forms of organisation as well as the political meaning of these struggles.

News has showed us that that nobody waited for the assembly to act on the ground. Already a few bolts disappeared, machines broke down, stakes that showed roadworks were systematically removed … If the sites are progressing well, too quickly, everyone can see that the range of nuisance actions remains open and that the effects are not negligible. The state and RTE now know that their arrogance is matched only by our determination.

If the assembly of Chefresne is resisting today it is not only against damage to health that is implicitly recognised by RTE because they buy houses within 100 m of the power lines (THT). The THT network is closely linked to nuclear power generation and assumed as such by EDF justifying this THT line with the EPR under construction. It is also a resistance to the nuclear industry that we are continuing today. But these high voltage power lines and the centralisation of power generation are the result of which they also have another meaning. With the proliferation of these projects in France and Europe, we now know that the state and industry have decided to make electricity an international speculative market, providing the means of an international distribution network to sell power of the EPR to Morocco, England or elsewhere. It is far from the concern expressed by EDF to secure distribution in France and especially in the West. It is also against the industrialist insanity and the reign of the economy that we come into resistance.

If what is happening today on the side of the Channel and Mayenne echoed by opponents of the airport of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, the gas power plant in Finistère, the TGV Paris-Cherbourg, is that we share the same sense of dispossession against the mass management of these projects involved with regional planning.

What we learned from the action of Valognes at the end of November is that when the determination is coupled with a horizontal collective organisation (formerly known as direct democracy), that we reap not only the confidence and force, it is also a deep sense of taking control of our own affairs again. What better response to the expropriations of our lives and developers of our survival?

This assembly is intended as a support (more than necessary) for the inhabitants and dwellers who find themselves powerless in the face of destruction work done by RTE against what was, for them places in which they have always lived and / or worked. The Assembly wishes to support their anger and guard against any act of desperation that could add to their sense of powerlessness, and will also make information available for the people to counter the propaganda produced by RTE on the advancement work, with supposedly no “incidents”. The Assembly wishes the people to reclaim this struggle by actively participating , and wants to work against all forms of resignation.

So that the residents and inhabitants do not feel deprived of the fight, they will be informed through posters of the next dates when the general assembly will meet. The group wants to be open to all initiatives and all persons wishing to learn or participate in this struggle.

The Assembly rejects all forms of political recovery. All initiatives should not, therefore, show any political affiliation or association.

The assembly will assume all types of actions, regardless of their “violence”, as long as they do not harm the physical integrity of persons working on the construction or the protection of the power lines. Whether produced by locals or people from outside, actions will be assumed in the same manner. The Collective wants to avoid unhelpful rivalries, between locals and non-locals.

NO RESIGNATION NO COMPROMISE, SABOTAGE SITES OF THE THT POWER LINES