There is a call-out for tens of thousands of people to gather in Nantes and in Toulouse on Saturday February 21. It declares: “Against the concreting of our countryside and the militarisation of our towns, let’s occupy the streets!”

A year ago 25,000 protested in Nantes against the ongoing plans for a new airport at Notre-Dame-Des-Landes and defiantly resisted police violence.

There was another wave of protests in October and November this year, after young environmentalist Rémi Fraisse was murdered by gendarmes in protests against a proposed new dam at Sivens near Le Testet in the south of France.

Rémi was a student at Toulouse and there were passionate protests in the city after his death, as well as in Nantes and elsewhere.

The political hysteria following the Charlie Hebdo attacks has increased the police-state atmosphere in France – the authorities are happy to use the opportunity to clamp down on all forms of opposition to the system.

In both Nantes and Toulouse there will be a week of resistance around the big demos against the state-corporate system which “reaches out in every direction with its tentacles of steel and concrete infrastructure. Here an airport, here a dual carriageway, a reservoir or a tourist park.

“Our aim is to regain our political autonomy, our capacity for self-organisation and mutual aid. But also to take back control of our existences, to nurture and to collectively defend our territories. To seize back everything that the Metropolis has stolen from us. To open breaches in the moribund world being built for us by the developers, to put back into it some joie de vivre, creativity, diversity and happiness.”

In Nantes the February 21 protest starts from 2pm in Square Daviais. In Toulouse, people will be gathering at the same time at Square Charles de Gaulle near Capitole underground station.

 http://21fevrier2015.noblogs.org/
 https://network23.org/paulcudenec/2015/02/03/big-call-out-for-french-resistance/