The ZAD is Everywhere! Report from the SF Solidarity Demo

The following report and video from San Francisco details a recent solidarity event with La ZAD, or Zone to Defend. To listen to our recent podcast on ongoing resistance there, go here.

On April 18th, some two weeks after the French state declared war on the ZAD, a ragtag band of radicals, revolutionaries, and all-around malfaiteurs paid a visit to the house of the French Consul General of San Francisco as an act of solidarity with our comrades defending the lives they’ve built outside of the control of the state and the economy.

Our demands were simple and to the point:

1. An immediate and permanent withdrawal of all gendarmes and state agents from the ZAD, and an end to their attacks on its occupants and the destruction of their structures.
2. Disband the police. You may leave their tanks, they will have more joyful futures as sewage processing units.
3. Cede all territories of the state of France to the communes of the ZAD, for the eventual creation of an ever-expanding and limitless ZAD. From the ZAD to Mars!

We planted a nine-foot, wooden watch tower – a micro-ZAD – in the front yard as a reminder that the ZAD truly is everywhere.

Just as the sands of the Sahara are swept by the winds to fertilize the rainforests of South America, or the sparks of wildfires spread to clear the way for new life, the spirit of the autonomy of the ZAD flows to disparate corners of the earth, striking chords of rebellion, joy, and life.

We aim not only to show our solidarity with those fighting the gendarmes on the bocage of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, but to speak to everyone who feels some part of their being tied to the existence of autonomous zones, wherever they are. Pressure the arms of the French state—show them they cannot escape the spirit of the ZAD—while building zones of experimental autonomy wherever you can. Carve out territories that escape the flows of the economy, where shared ways of living can flourish. This is war, and victory lies in the depth and breadth of the ties we create with each other and the world.

“‘I revolt, therefore I ramify.’ This is how we should speak to the stake that raises our rebellion.”