From Notre-Dame-des-Landes to Bure, the Wild Decade of the “zones to defend” (2008-2017)

In France, through the rise of the “zones to defend” (ZAD), a new form of struggle have developed in the years 2008-2017 that profoundly renew the forms (the permanent occupation of the sites of the contested projects to prevent their actual building) and the players (alter-globalization activists) of the contestation scene. Physical resistance to evictions, good use of social networks and media combined to the action of numerous support groups transform the power struggles between projects supporters and opponents, and cause the State new problems: how to evict the “zadists”? What space for concertation? Could local referendum be the solution?