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SOCIAL MOVEMENTS OPPOSING MEGA PROJECTS A Rhizome of Resistance to Neoliberalism Foreword In the last years, many mega projects have been faced by social movements of opposition that go beyond resident NIMBY (Not In My BackYard) struggles, in the sense that their opposition is based on considerations of common good rather than individualist interests. Protesting against a project often leads to questioning broader issues. This document is a synthesis of a master thesis that I wrote between February and July 2014, in which I wanted to describe and account for the social movements opposing mega projects and the relations between them at the European scale. I used research on the Internet, but also field observation during several visits of struggle sites, especially in Notre-dame-des-Landes, which was my main case study. I met many brave, upstanding and inspiring people during this project, to whom I express my gratitude. Feel free to comment, criticise and spread this paper! [email protected] 1

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SOCIAL MOVEMENTS OPPOSINGMEGA PROJECTSA Rhizome of Resistance to Neoliberalism

Foreword

In the last years, many mega projects havebeen faced by social movements ofopposition that go beyond resident NIMBY(Not In My BackYard) struggles, in the sensethat their opposition is based onconsiderations of common good rather thanindividualist interests. Protesting against aproject often leads to questioning broaderissues.

This document is a synthesis of a masterthesis that I wrote between February andJuly 2014, in which I wanted to describe andaccount for the social movements opposingmega projects and the relations betweenthem at the European scale.

I used research on the Internet, but also fieldobservation during several visits of strugglesites, especially in Notre-dame-des-Landes,which was my main case study.

I met many brave, upstanding and inspiringpeople during this project, to whom Iexpress my gratitude.

Feel free to comment, criticise and spreadthis paper!

Diane Robert

[email protected]

1

A – Unnecessary Imposed Mega Projects andneoliberalism

What are Mega Projects?

Mega projects can be defined as large-scaleinvestments in physical capital facilities.Theynot only include infrastructure projectsdealing with transport, energy, water andwaste management, but also mining orfracking facilities and projects aiming at urbanregeneration, like for instance waterfrontdevelopment projects, large-scale touristresorts and commercial centres.

Mega projects are not new: they intertwinewith the story of civilisations. For instance,one can think of the Egyptian Pyramids, theGreat Wall of China, the cathedrals, the Moaistatues of Easter Island… More recently,mega projects have proliferated withindustrialisation era and they have played akey role in post-crisis periods.They areviewed as a means to stabilise capital, tofoster growth and to raise living standards.

As a matter of fact, mega projects are deeplyrelated to the ideology of progress. In theforeword of magazine Insight - The globalinfrastructure magazine, Nick Chism, GlobalChair of KPMG’s Infrastructure, Governmentand Healthcare line of business, writes:“Onecannot help but be awestruck by megaprojects.When huge budgets, massivefootprints, unanticipated transformativebenefits and all the thrills and spills of atheme park ride come together in oneexhilarating project, it’s hard not to beenthralled.”1

Most of the times, this optimism isn’tjustified, though. Flyvbjerg even talks about“Machiavellian mega projects”2: Afterreviewing data from several hundred largeprojects, he nearly systematicallyencountered underestimated costs andoverestimated benefits. He suggests that thereason why these projects are carried outdespite these poor performances is thatthey bring profits to various categories ofpeople: engineers, developers, bankers,lawyers, construction workers… Megaprojects boost politicians’ careers and theyare instruments for city branding.

What I would like to highlight now is therelation between mega projects andneoliberalism, especially after the 1980s.

Notes:1 Nick Chism,‘foreword’, Insight, Issue4, 2013, p.1

2 Bent Flyvbjerg,‘Machiavellian Megaprojects’,Antipode,Vol.37(1), 2005, p.21

3 Jamie Peck andAdamTickell,‘Conceptualizing Neoliberalism,ThinkingThatcherism’,Contesting neoliberalism urban frontiers, p.27

4 Made popular by J. Schumpeter, the term has been employed by D.Harvey, J. Peck,N.Theodore & N.Brenner

5 Mike Davis and Daniel Bertrand Monk, Evil paradises - Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism,The New Press

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What is neoliberalism?

Here are some core aspects of neoliberalism:

A neoliberal shift occurred in the 1980s: newfinancing techniques emerged; Public-PrivatePartnerships were increasingly adopted.Urban space became predominantly an arena

for market-oriented economic growth10, in acontext of competition between cities.Thishas deeply affected mega-projects.

Neoliberalism refers to a doctrine thatcelebrates unfettered market rule,according to which the market shouldcontrol the political sphere, and marketrule should penetrate all spheres of sociallife.

It is a project that is heterogeneously and partiallyachieved: it is hybrid, context-dependant; it is “morehydra than Goliath”3. In Greek mythology, theLernaean Hydra is a monster with many heads thatgrow back when cut off. Similarly, neoliberalism hasa plural and sneaky nature.

A doctrine: unfettered market rule

"More Hydra than Goliath"

Neoliberalism has affecteddemocracy.The public has shiftedfrom a collective identity to a sum oftaxpayers and consumers.7 With thehelp of the assumption of thesuperiority of the market to dealwith public issues, the possibilities tomake a political choice and to have apolitical conflict are brushed aside.The only thing left is a consensusaround “global economic necessity”8.Swyngedow names this consensusthe “postpolitical urban order”. Heexplains that there is no choice orfreedom outside this order anddissent can only emerge from thetraditionalist or the fundamentalist9.

Some authors refer toneoliberalism as “creativedestruction”4: the partial

destruction of what hinders theapplication of the doctrine

(which can be regulations orsocial welfare policies) and thecreation of new infrastructure

for economic growth andcommodification go hand by

hand.

"Creative destruction"

Neoliberalism is accompaniedby disparities: Davis even argues

that social inequalities are thedriving forces of contemporary

economy, and not only merecollateral damage5.Moreover, increasing transport speed and

development of IT have involved moreconcentration of activity in metropolises andincreasing spatial inequalities.6 They create an

image of a networked territory where therelations between nodes prevail over the

relations between a node and its hinterland.

Social inequalities

Spatial polarisation

"Post-political urban order"

Neoliberalism

Notes:6 PierreVeltz,Mondialisation,Villes etTerritoires,p.70

7 John Clarke, 'Dissolving the Public Realm?The Logics and Limits of Neo-liberalism', Journal of Social Policy,2004,p.31

8 Jacques Rancière, 'Introducing disagreement',Angelaki: Journal of theTheoretical Humanities,2010,p.4

9 Erik Swyngedow, 'TheAntinomies of the Postpolitical City: In Search of a Democratic Politics of Environmental Production', 2009

10 Jamie Peck andAdamTickell,‘Conceptualizing Neoliberalism,ThinkingThatcherism’,Contesting neoliberalism urban frontiers,p.91

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Today post-crisis context – megaprojects as an “asset class”

In today (post-)crisis context, largeinfrastructure development is promoted bynational governments, multilateraldevelopment banks and internationalgroupings, such as G20. Mega Projects arepart of the plan to drag Europe from thecrisis. Indeed the European Commission hasdeveloped guidelines for transport (TEN-T),energy (TEN-E) and telecommunication(ICT) networks. In some aspects this issimilar to New Deal programmes thatresponded to the Great Depression of 1929in the United States.

According to the neoliberal doctrine, what isgood for the market is good for society ingeneral. But there are grounds to doubt it.These investments in infrastructure megaprojects occur in an era when we know thatnatural resources are limited and radicalchange is needed to at least alleviate thedisastrous consequences of climate change.Moreover, the social benefits of megaprojects are highly contested and arousestrong opposition.

But the “New Deal” of today is clearlyneoliberal: mega projects are financedthrough Public-Private-Partnerships and newfinancial tools like Europe 2020 Project BondInitiative are developed to “transforminfrastructure into an asset class”11 forfinanciers and alleviate the constraints oninvestment related to mega projects, whichcannot be free from uncertainties and whosebenefits occur in the long run. Indeed megaprojects are increasingly viewed as an areawhere to invest the huge sums of moneyaccumulated in private wealth in search ofhefty returns12.

"Unnecessary Imposed MegaProjects"

By labelling mega projects “unnecessary” and“imposed”, opposition movements set eachof their struggles in the broader frame of afight against neoliberal consensus, whichbenefits a few individual and corporateinterests while destabilising the economy andharming the environment and the socialfabric of the place, in defiance of “realdemocracy”.This labelling gives theirstruggles visibility and enables to constitute acommon basis for a “coalition ofdifference”13, from which they candeconstruct not only the very projects thatthey fight but also the logics behind them.Thus, they question a certain spatial rationaletied to mega projects.

“Unnecessary”Naming the mega projects “unnecessary”implies the question:“necessary for whom?”and introduces the issue of class strugglebetween the few beneficiary of theconstruction and exploitation of megaprojects and the vast majority of peopleripped off. By doing that, opponents pointtheir fingers at the social disparities that go

Notes:11 Nicholas Hildyard,More than bricks and mortar. Infrastructure asAsset Class:A Critical Look at Private Equity Infrastructure Funds,2012

12 Elena Gerebizza &AntonioTricarico, Large infrastructure to overcome the crisis?, re:Common, 2013, p.3

13 Paul Routledge,Convergence space: process geographies of grassroots globalization networks, p.335

14, 15 Charter ofTunis. Forum Against Useless and Imposed Mega Projects, 2013

16 David Harvey,Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction, 2007

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along with neoliberal projects.They suggestthat rather than multiplying mega projectsthat are only necessary for small elite,“maintaining and optimizing existinginfrastructure” is a better solution14.Moreover, they highlight the harmfulcharacter of the mega projects they arefighting:“mega projects permit the capitalistpredator to increase its dominance on theplanet generating irreversible damage to theenvironment and the populace”15.Thisstatement thus echoes the double process of“creative destruction” that describescapitalism or neoliberalism.1 6

Mega projects and the process ofmetropolisation

Mega projects participate in the process ofmetropolisation: they contribute to creatinga network territory where the centres arewell-connected to each other at the expenseof the connections between the centres andtheir hinterlands19. Some oppositionmovements highlight the relation betweenprocesses of metropolisation anddesertification.20 What is not a centre isdoomed to decay.

Thus they raise awareness on the fact thatcompetition between cities and regions isdriving the cities’ policies instead of notionsof general interest or the interest of theinhabitants. Similarly, the Charter of Tunisstates that unnecessary imposed megaprojects “increase competition betweenterritories and always lean toward “bigger,faster, more expensive, more centralized”21.They imply unsustainable consumption ofnatural and financial resources.

"Imposed"The adjective “Imposed” orients discussiontowards the question of democracy. Megaprojects look democratic from a distance:there has been a “Public Debate” before theproject of building an airport in Notre-Dame-des-Landes was accepted, for instance.Many mega projects are led on a basis of aconsensus gathering the main political partiesthat state the “obligation" to conduct themfor the development of the region, a stancethat is often conveyed by mainstream media.Then the opposition movements, who situatethemselves outside this consensus, facesituations of contempt or repression. Indeedthe Charter of Tunis emphasizes “themilitarisation and criminalisation ofopposition”17. For instance, Chiara, Claudio,Niccolò and Mattia, who took part in a directaction of sabotage against the High SpeedRailway between Lyon and Turin, are accusedof act of terrorism, damage, violence towardpolice officers, possession and transport ofwar weapons, and they are on remand inItalian High Security Quarters. In theserespects, mega projects are part of the “post-political urban order” described bySwyngedow and Rancière18.

Notes:17 Charter ofTunis. Forum Against Useless and Imposed Mega Projects, 2013

18 Jacques Rancière, Introducing disagreement, Erik Swyngedow,TheAntinomies of the Postpolitical City

19 PierreVeltz,Mondialisation,Villes etTerritoires

20 See Nantes Nécropole N°3, Spring-Summer 2014,CNCA

21 Charter ofTunis. Forum Against Useless and Imposed Mega Projects, 2013

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B – The rhizome of social movements opposingMega Projects

Social movements of today

A definition of social movements can be thisone: "collective challenges, based on commonpurposes and social solidarities, in sustainedinteraction with elites, opponents, andauthorities"1. Lopes de Sousa claims thattheir role is to put the State permanentlyunder pressure.2

Social movements evolve with the society inwhich they take part. In industrial societies ofthe XIXth century, social movements wereseen as associations of people with commoninterests embedded in structured socialpositions3. In the post-industrial, knowledge-based societies of today, the symbolicdimension is said to prevail over the attemptto achieve a specific goal (as it was the casein the XIXth century)4. Contemporary socialmovements enable to construct a collectiveidentity.They try to practice the socialchanges they seek5.

Internet and cheap air flight have madepersonal contact easier between activists ofdifferent parts of the world6. Some“Grassroots globalisation networks” haveemerged, in which relations are moreflexible7; they tend toward horizontality andpreserving heterogeneity, that’s why thesenetworks are named “coalitions ofdifferences”8. More metaphorical terms arealso used, such as swarms and multitude.9

The movements are still influenced bycapitalist and traditional society. Categorieslike class, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc.continue to shape social relations10.Networks are characterised by powerasymmetries: some hubs emerge, with morepower and more influence11.

In some respects, these traits of today socialmovements can be seen in the movementsopposing mega projects.

Rhizome?

In botany, a rhizome is a horizontal,underground plant stem.The term has beentaken up by Deleuze and Guattari in theirbook A Thousand Plateaus12.They definedsome principles among which the principlesof connection and heterogeneity stating thatany point of a rhizome can be connected toanything other, and must be, that there is nodeep structure like there would be in a tree,and the principle of asignifying rupture: if you

Notes:1 SidneyTarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics,Third edition, 2011, p.9

2 Marcelo Lopes de Souza, Social movements as ‘critical urban planning’ agents,City, 2006, p.328

3Alberto Melucci, as quoted in Joseph Gusfield,Nomads of the present,Alberto Melucci, Society, 1990

4, 5Alberto Melucci,Nomads of the Present: social Movements and Individual Needs in Contemporary Society, 198

6, 7, 8 Paul Routledge,Convergence space: process geographies of grassroots globalization networks

9 JohnArquilla & David Ronfeldt, 2001;Michael Hardt &Antonio Negri, 2004;Naomi Klein, 2002;Notes from Nowhere, 2003: as

quoted inAndy Cumbers, Paul Routledge and Corinne Nativel,The entangled geographies of global justice, 2008

10Andy Cumbers, Paul Routledge and Corinne Nativel,The entangled geographies of global justice, 2008, pp. 188-189

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break it, it can start up again.To sum up, therhizome is a network with characters ofmultiplicity, intense relation with its surroundingsand transformative potential.There are severalbenefits in thinking of the social movementsopposing mega projects, as well as of manycontemporary social movements, in terms ofrhizomes.

The social movements opposing megaprojects are characterised by significantheterogeneity of and inside the differentstruggles, even though some profiles are tobe seen more often than others (deepecologists, retired people who have moretime to dedicate to the struggle…). There isa tendency to multiply connections betweenboth parts of and between the strugglesagainst mega projects. However, due tovariances in cultural, national and ideologicalproximity and to the influence of thecontext, every movement has some

privileged connections. In addition,horizontalism is favoured in thesemovements over more traditionalhierarchized structures, in spite of someunevenness in power and representationamong the movements and the activists.

A major contribution of thinking in term ofrhizome is that it highlights the multipleprocesses of exchange that the movementshave with their “soil”, their context. Onpolitical and historical levels, there seem tobe fewer contested projects in somecountries especially post-communistcountries in Eastern Europe13.The nationalscale seems to remain prevalent to bind themovements together.And culture andidentity certainly play a key role: for instance,certain ways to dress and talk make somepeople more comfortable than other inevery part of the movements.

Notes:11 GrahamThompson, Is the world a complex network?, Economy and Society, 2004, quoted inAndy Cumbers, Paul Routledge and

Corinne Nativel,The entangled geographies of global justice, 2008, p.189

12 Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari,A thousand plateaus, 1987

13 see the maps later in section B, and in sections C and D

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Multiple and diverse struggles against mega projects

The following map shows an inventory of contested mega projects in Europe (in a large sense) toillustrate the multiplicity and diversity of the struggles. It is non-exhaustive.

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This non-exhaustive inventory is based on:

• my own research, which takes into accountthe projects opposed by movements thathave participated in the Forums againstUnnecessary Imposed Mega Projects and bymovements in relation with activists of theZAD in Notre Dame des Landes, from theinformation available on their websites andtraces on site that I could find14.

• The website Ej Atlas, which presents an

atlas of Environmental Justice that aims at

“mapping ecological conflicts and spaces ofresistance”. It is carried out by the globalresearch project EJOLT (EnvironmentalJustice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade).1 5

• The map of Unnecessary Imposed MegaProjects published by the Intercoll project(social movements international collectiveintellectual) and French review Mouvements,initiated by activist and journalist NicolasHaeringer.16

Notes:14 See section D

15 EjAtlas.org,About theAtlas of Environmental Justice, http://ejatlas.org/

16 Intercoll.net, Large and useless infrastructures, http://www.intercoll.net/bdf/en/questions/question-3.html9

c – A few examplesNotre-Dame-des-Landes

The project of building a new “international”airport in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, a villagein the vicinity of Nantes, is nearly 50 year old.The last time it resurfaced was in the late1990s due to the overload of Parisianairports.This new airport was to replacecurrent airport of Nantes-Atlantique and tobe the major airport for the whole Grand-Ouest region.A series of public meetingsover a period of six months in 2003 and in2008 the project was Declared Public Utility,making the inhabitants of the areaexpropriable. In 2010, within the frame of aPublic Private Partnership, the State signed aconcession contract with AGO, aVINCIsubsidiary company, which plans theconstruction of the airport in Notre Damedes Landes and its operating for 55 years.1

local supporting committees.The ZADmovement, which started around 2008, iscomprised of the occupiers of the zone. Itsignificantly grew following Caesar operationin 2012 when the police forces evicted anddestroyed occupied houses on site. Inresponse to it, a big demonstration wasorganised on 17 November 2012, whichgained national coverage in the media andmade the struggle a delicate matter for theauthorities who established a truce.TheZAD became a space of experimentation,gardening, farming and collective living.

There are also other movements involved inthe struggle against an airport in Notre-Dame-des-Landes: COPAIN44 who fightagainst the loss of agricultural land and forsustainable farming, a group of naturalists, agroup of elected representatives (CéDPA), aNantes-based group that publishesnewspapers (CNCA)… The oppositionmovement is multi-headed, inside whichthere are many conflicts, many differentapproaches and worldviews. However, theyoften act in common, organisingdemonstrations and also longer-termprojects like Sème ta ZAD.

Opposition to the project has also existedfor a long time and it has strengthened anddiversified in the last years.The oldestassociation is ADECA (Association forDefence of Farmers Concerned by theAirport), created in 1972.The biggestinstitutional association is ACIPA (CivicIntermunicipal Association of PeopleConcerned by the Airport Project), createdin 2000, which also coordinates dozens of

Notes:1 Jean Renard & Cécile Rialland-Juin,‘Le projet d’aéroport de Notre-Dame-des-Landes : les rebonds d’un aménagement conflictuel’,

Géoconfluences (ENS de Lyon/ Dgesco), 2013

2 Ouest France,ND-des-Landes.Les images du centre-ville de Nantes dévasté,23/02/2014;Ouest France,ND-des-Landes.Qui étaient

les casseurs de la manifestation de Nantes?,26/02/14;Challenges,Des "scènes de guérilla urbaine" dans les rues de Nantes,23/02/14,etc.

http://aeroport-grandouest.fr

pagedesuie.wordpress.com

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NoTAV

The No TAV movement has been opposing aproject of High Speed Railway between Lyonand Turin for more than ten years.Theproject is part of European policy Trans-European Network for Transport (TEN-T).A235-kilometer international railway line isplanned to be built for freight and passengertransport, including a 57-km tunnel underthe Alps.There is already another railwaybetween Lyon and Turin, effective today, butthe project promoters claim that itsimplementation for freight transport wouldbe less interesting than building a new line,although traffic flows are declining between

the two cities and it is unlikely that thedemand rises in the future.3 The project isexpected to cost 26 billion euros, a figurethat has more than doubled since thebeginning of the project discussions. It is alsohighly criticised on ecological basis since forinstance the mountains in which the tunnel isto be dug are filled with uranium, radon, andasbestos.4 Moreover, the risk of mafiainfiltration is high.5

The opposition movement NoTAV isoriginally and principally located in Susavalley, Italy, even though other movements ofresistance have emerged in other regions inItaly and France. Now the opponents claimthat the movement of resistance about theHigh Speed Railway between Lyon and Turinis one Franco-Italian movement, not twonational movements that show solidarity toeach other.6 Following the “rough escalationof the conflict during the winter of 2005,when the valley was militarized”7, a massivedemonstration was organised, as well asactions to reconquer the sites of plannedtunnel drilling by establishing “presidi”(garrisons) that became socialising placeswhere the current model of capitalistdevelopment in general is constantlyquestioned. It is claimed that the movement"prefigured a possible social alternative basedon a direct, communitarian self-government.”8

On 22 February 2014, a demonstration wasorganised in Nantes that gathered up to50000 people and 500 tractors, sign ofmassive peasant mobilisation. Fights beganbetween some demonstrators and forces ofthe security police who were massivelypresent too: paved stones against stungrenades, tear gas, water cannon.Threedemonstrators lost an eye. Mainstreammedia & members of the governmentemphasized the violence and materialdamage and stigmatised the demonstrators,even the ones who did not fight the police2.

Notes:3 E.Armano,G.L.Pittavino & R.Sciortino,Occupy inValsusa:The NoTAV Movement,Capitalism Nature Socialism,2013

4 E.Leonardi, Foucault in the SusaValley:The NoTAV Movement and Struggles for Subjectification,Capitalism Nature Socialism,2013

5 Reporterre (Andrea Barolini), Série GPII – Le Lyon-Turin,nouveau terrain de jeu de la mafia, (Reporterre.net,02/04/2014)

6 Paolo Prieri & Daniel Ibanez in Chambéry Evènements,Vélo-randonnée Convergence des luttes NoTAV Chambéry, [video],2014

7,8 E.Leonardi, Foucault in the SusaValley:The NoTAV Movement and Struggles for Subjectification,Capitalism Nature Socialism,2013

Lemonde.fr http://paris-luttes.info/

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The last years of protest have been markedby violent repression and an intensifiedcriminalization of the movement9. InDecember 2013, four activists, ChiaraZenobi, Claudio Alberto, Niccolò Blasi andMattia Zanotti, were arrested and accused ofterrorism following a direct action ofsabotage of the machines on the building siteof the exploratory tunnel in Chiomonte,Valdi Susa.While some activists kept the policeat a distance with Molotov cocktails, othersfired a couple of machines. No one wasinjured and the No TAV movement as awhole claimed responsibility for the action.Chiara, Claudio, Niccolò and Mattia are nowin jail in high security quarters.Their trialstarted in May 2014 and if accusations ofterrorism are enforced, they risk sentencesof 20 to 30 years of prison. Numerousdemonstrations of solidarity have beenexpressed not only in Italy but also in otherEuropean countries.

Stuttgart 21

Stuttgart 21 is a twenty-year old railway andurban development project, part of TEN-T(Trans European Network of Transportation)policy that plans to rebuild Stuttgart railstation with about 60 km of new railway, halfof them in tunnels.The predicted cost are 6.5billion euros (higher now than during thenegotiations), to be shared between GermanRailway Company Deutsche Bahn, the stateof Baden-Württemberg, the Germangovernment and the city of Stuttgart.

The project has been controversial since thebeginning but large grassroots mobilisationbegan in 2007-2008, after a petition thatgathered more than 60000 signaturesdemanding a referendum, while only 20000were necessary, was ignored.Thousands ofpeople gathered on the street and theirnumber continuously increased at thefollowing demonstrations. On 30 September2010, named “Schwarzer Donnerstag”,hundreds of people who were occupying thepark where trees would be cut for theproject were injured by the police, whichused water cannon and pepper spray againstthe demonstrators.Thus the demonstrationon 1 October 2010 gathered 100000 people.

The original mobilisation has been describedas rather bourgeois, quite old and based onindignation as tax money would finance abadly budgeted project that plans to destructa park in disregard of democracy. Many ofthe demonstrators became politicised by theopposition to Stuttgart 21 and reacted withmuch surprise to what they perceived aspolice violence.When some demonstratorsoccupied the project site on 20 June 2011,which led to fights with the police andmaterial damage, many people distanced

Notes:9 E. Leonardi, Foucault in the SusaValley:The NoTAV Movement and Struggles for Subjectification,Capitalism Nature Socialism, 2013

10 Based on interviews with Julia von Staden,Andrea Schmidt and Sabine Manke, activists against Stuttgart21 project, in Stuttgart,

25/04/2014

http://www.imperiapost.it/

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from the opposition that they foundbecoming too radical. Following that, areferendum to decide whether the state ofBaden-Württemberg should cease fundingfor the project gained nearly 60% of votesstating that it should not, so that the projectwas maintained. Now mobilisation has fallenand building work has started.10

Hambacher Forst

Hambacher Forst is a forest located west ofKöln in Germany, which originally covered5500 hectares and hosts dozens of protectedspecies, notably bats. Brown coal extractionhas largely encroached on the forest andGerman Electricity Company RWE plans toextend the mining area.The forest has beenperiodically occupied since 2012, beingevicted by the police several times.The lasttime was in March 2014 and four weeks later,on 26 April, a demonstration of reoccupationwas organised, which was successful,following a Skill-sharing camp. I arrived therein the evening in the camp on a field.Therewere several dozens of (especially young)people of several nationalities, among thempeople from the ZAD in France.A collectivekitchen had been built and people prepared ameal together and shared it, while a fewpeople were spending the night hanging ontrees.The occupiers want to raise attentionon the forest destruction and the need for aradically different energy model by gettingout not only of very polluting and inefficientcoal mining but also of nuclear power. Localpeople tend to be wary of the occupiers andit is argued that stronger links should bemade between the occupiers, the locals andother opponents to RWE, principally activein associations11. However, the opposition toRWE in Hambacher Forst has already gainedattention at the national scale.

Rosia Montana

Rosia Montană is a village in WesternTransylvania and more specifically in thesmall and beautiful Apuseni mountains.Historically, the place has been a site for goldmining since the late Stone Age.Aftercenturies of underground mining, the goldstarted to be extracted open-pit in 1975 by astate-owned company and this mine wasclosed in 2006.The current gold and silvermining project is initiated by Rosia MontanăGold Corporation, a subsidiary of Canadianfirm Gabriel Resources, supported by thegovernment. It consists of Europe's largestopen-pit gold mine, using gold cyanidationmining technique.The protest has been verysignificant in Romania, with demonstrationsgathering thousands of people12. Now theproject is on-hold because of regulationsregarding the environment and heritage.

These five cases of struggle are alldifferent: they take place in differentcontexts, over disparate time lengths andgenerate contrasted outcomes. But theyalso share similarities: spectacular rises inthe cost of the projects, collusion ofinterests at various levels between thegovernment, the firms that are involvedand mafious organisations, powerasymmetries between the projectspromoters and opponents, and differentdegrees of repression. One can also notethat apparently, cohesion inside themovement and good relations with localpeople do help.

Notes:11 Based on interview withThomas Puls, activist for the preservation of Hambacher Forst, in Buir, 26/04/2014

12 Based on a visit of Rosia Montana, 8-12/05/2014

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D – The Forums Against Unnecessary ImposedMega ProjectsConnections between themovements

For several years, a number of movementsopposed to mega projects have started toget in touch with each other, to exchangeinformation and advice. References to otherstruggles are commonplace in numerousstruggle sites. Some connections also exist

with other issues like the struggle againstGMOs, the resistance of Zapatistas inChiapas, the repression of migrants in Calais,urban squatting movements, antifascistgroups, etc.The different movements also co-operate by the means of regular gatherings:the Forums Against Unnecessary ImposedMega Projects.

The previous map is a non-exhaustiveinventory of the movements with whom theZAD of Notre-Dame-des-Landes has shownsolidarity, based on their official website andleaflets, banners and inscriptions found onsite.It gives an idea of the extent ofnetworking efforts.

Many struggles in France are also referred toas “ZADs”:“Zones To defend”. Indeed theZAD in Notre-Dame-des-Landes hasinspired other groups of resistance againstinfrastructure projects to occupy zones anddevelop “post-capitalist” communities, in theframe of a general movement – ZADeverywhere.

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The origin of the Forums: theCharter of Hendaye

The origin of the European forums againstlarge infrastructure projects can be tracedback to a gathering that took place inHendaye close to the Spanish-France borderin 2010, in which dozens of associationsopposed to high speed railways from thestates of France, Spain and Italy took part, inorder to “join their forces and to make theirvoices louder and stronger, since theproblems that they are facing are the sameeverywhere.”1 The movements that werepresent released a text, the Charter ofHendaye, which was then presented to theEuropean Parliament.The charter highlightedthe main points of dissent toward high speedrailway projects.Then the charter exposedthe demands of the movements to theEuropean institutions – to revision TEN-Tpolicy and to governments – to stop theproject and initiate real public debates ontransport and territorial planning. Finally itproposed guidelines for solutions – tomaintain and develop the existinginfrastructure, to reduce transport andrelocalise the economy and to establish anauthentic local democracy.

The forums: an expansion trend

Following this gathering in Hendaye, the Italianmovement No-TAV initiated the first forumopposing “Unnecessary Large Projects” inAugust 2011 inVenaus,Val di Susa, where 10opposition movements against large transportprojects in Italy, Spain, France, Germany,Ireland exchanged views about their strugglesand decided to continue the process ofnetworking and cooperating.2

The second forum took place nearby Notre-Dame-des-Landes, France, in July 2012 and upto 8000 people attended it.The adjective“imposed” was added to “unnecessary megaprojects” in order to highlight the lack ofdemocracy in the decisions made about theprojects.The intention was to explain andpopularize the concept broadly. Moreover,there was a thematic broadening out: fromtransport to energy production and waste.3

The third forum took place in Stuttgart,Germany, in July 2013. It emphasized therelation between mega projects and thefinancial bubble.The participants reaffirmedtheir will to “promote the internationalmovement against unnecessary imposedmega-projects of any kind.”4

About 150 people attended the Fourth Forumin 2014 in Rosia Montania, Romania, whichgathered protest movements against mining,fracking, and infrastructure projects. Duringworkshops, lectures, debates, but also informalexchanges, other themes like wasteincineration, energy in general, debt andfinancing, attempts of connecting with otherstruggles were discussed, as well as strategicissues for the movement itself: redefining“unnecessary” and “imposed”, the forms ofstruggle, legal issues, strategy with Europeaninstitutions, perspectives, relations withpolitical parties in the struggles against megaprojects.5

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The maps account for thespatial evolution of theforums.

They show the socialmovements present at thedifferent forums.They arebased on the programsand accounts of thedifferent forums.

It may well be the casethat some movements thattook part in the forumsbut didn’t appear in theprogram haven’t beenregistered for the map.

That’s why the maps give ageneral view of whichmovements participated inthe forums over timerather than a preciseaccount.

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Relation with the Social Forums

The structure and the idea of the forums areintimately linked to the ones of the Worldand European Social Forums, which areannual meetings of civil society organizationsthat attempt to develop an alternative toneoliberal globalisation. Some forums werethematic and regional sub-forums with theprocess and approach of Social Forums.Moreover, inside World Social Forums like inTunis in 2013, some days were dedicated tomega projects. It resulted notably in theCharter of Tunis that took up the HendayeCharter and added or emphasized someaspects: the competition between territoriesthat spur mega projects, the polarisationbetween the rich and the poor, the relationbetween mega projects, debt and the liberaleconomic system.6

A reason for these organisational similaritieswith the Social Forum or even integrationinto it is that many activists against largeprojects who organised the first forumsagainst mega projects were also part of thealter-globalisation movement and the SocialForums. However, not everybody in theForums against Unnecessary Imposed MegaProjects is familiar with the Social Forums.7

Notes:1The Hendaye Charter, Joint Declaration of January 23th, 20102ACIPA, La lutte contre les grands projets inutiles s’organise en Europe,Reporterre, 10/09/20113 Geneviève Coiffard-Grosdoy, Interview on 23/02/2014,ZAD,Notre-Dame-des-Landes4Third European Forum against unnecessary imposed mega projects, Final declaration, 28/07/20145 Based on a visit of Rosia Montana, 8-12/05/20146 Charter ofTunis. Forum Against Useless and Imposed Mega Projects, 20137 Geneviève Coiffard-Grosdoy, Interview on 23/02/2014,ZAD,Notre-Dame-des-Landes

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E – Prospects

Social movements against mega projects donot only oppose them: their views, practicesand organisational structures reflect a will topropose alternatives to the neoliberal hydra.Therefore they open up prospects that areworth examining for anyone interested insocietal and spatial trends.

Spatial and social organisations

Mega projects make tangible the neoliberallogics that are behind them in a specific siteand specific context: following that, strugglesagainst mega projects are concrete strugglesthat are anchored in the territory, unlikemore general struggles against neoliberalism.Moreover, opposition movements to specificprojects are related to each other.Thisestablishes complex and multi-layeredgeographies of opposition to mega projects.

The rhizome of opposition to mega projectsshares similarities with the networks thatstructure neoliberal economy. Indeed, as thelatter, it is affected by certain unevenness,inequalities and polarisation. However, unlikeneoliberal networks, the more polarised it is,the weaker: the most successful movementsmanaged to bring together their diverseentities without a few dominating the others.In addition, opposition to mega projects ischaracterised by horizontalist will andmistrust toward hierarchized planning. Itfavours inclusiveness and cooperation ratherthan competition.

Personal fulfilment by collectivelyfighting neoliberalism

Even though social movements opposed tomega projects struggle to bring them to anend, they also try to set spaces andsituations for social relations that are notperverted by cold competition and the logicof profit and enable individual and collectivefulfilment. Subjectivity is important: what isemphasised is lived experience rather thanany claimed objectivity. Many things happen(or seem to happen) spontaneously: planningis seen as an alienating system whereconsumption is prevailing and as a processof rational locking up of people and of theirdesires.

The movements promote convivialsustainability. In many places that areoccupied and during the gatherings,alternative practices of organisation andliving are promoted: vegan or vegetarianlocal food with very little waste, collectivekitchens, convivial spaces, dry toilets,accommodation in wood cabins, localpeople's homes or in tents…

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Deciding together the fate of thecommons

Practices of decision-making in themovements are democratic in theterminology of Rancière1, in the sense thatthey are based on equality between theparticipants (or at least tend to be…). Ratherthan avoiding conflicts, they express them,which might make it hard for newcomers toengage at the beginning: one has toovercome shyness and fear of confrontation,but democracy should be understood assomething for which to aim continuouslyrather than something already achieved.Moreover, these practices are diverse,depending on the different groups that areinvolved in the movements.

For example, in the struggle against theairport project in Notre-Dame-des-Landes,the ZAD movement and associations likeACIPA and ADECA, which are moreinstitutional and structured, sometimes have

trouble establishing conditions for arenas fordemocracy that suit both of them: there aretensions involving representation, or pre-established or spontaneous order ofspeakers.

But the common goal of resisting the airportproject and the necessity to find anarrangement for the territory of the ZAD in“Sème ta Zad” operation in the past, ortoday for its future once the airport projectis cancelled for instance, force them toimplement solutions.The territory of theZAD, with its richness in biodiversity, activity,social relations and meanings, is a commonthat is constantly discussed and reinvented.

The movements opposing mega projectsstruggle for the right to decide collectivelyon the future of the commons, whetherthese are natural resources, energeticmodels, democratic processes or socialrelations.

Notes:1 Jacques Rancière, Introducing disagreement

Labofii.wordpress.com

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Although I tried to provide a fair and justifiedaccount of these struggles, some views that Iexpressed here are subjective and might bediscussed. But I hope that you learnedsomething by reading it and that it raisedyour attention to the struggles against megaprojects.Some challenges inherent in the movementsare also worth debating and some alreadyare.

Structure of the rhizome

Some argue that establishing a kind of centralstructure to make information transfer,convergence and mobilisation easier wouldbe useful and good for resilience: therhizome of today depends on thebenevolence and availability of its members; itappears unstable and hardly traceable.But a central structure could also establishcertain hierarchies, harm the openness,multiplicity and heterogeneity that is nowpresent in the movement against megaprojects: in short, it would cease to be arhizome.Developing tools to make connectivity andinformation transfer easier while keeping theopenness, multiplicity, heterogeneity andrichness of lived experiences of the struggleis therefore a big challenge for the growingrhizome of movements opposed to megaprojects.

North/South

Moreover, the rhizome of today is principallydeveloped in Western Europe, althoughcontested projects are present everywhereand the neoliberal logics that lay behind themare developed globally.The ties withmovements in Eastern countries (exceptRomania) are still quite weak, and there arenot many ties with movements of the GlobalSouth. Strengthening the links betweenmovements of the Global North and theGlobal South is, I think, a relevant line ofdevelopment for the rhizome.The expansion

could also be thematic, with stronger tiescreated with other non-place-based struggles.The potential is there, as struggles aroundmega projects question broad societal issues.

Laws, Partnerships

Mega projects are related to economicstructures, political decisions, laws that arebeing passed at many scales and levels. Forinstance,Transatlantic Trade and InvestmentPartnership could have an incidence on theframework in which mega projects areimplemented, and environmental laws thatare decided at the European scale can disrupttheir progress… Surveillance and supervisionof this political and economic contextenables to better oppose mega projects. Inthe rhizome, some movements or activistsseem to act on that level, by observing andcriticising projects by the EuropeanCommission, for example.

Perpectives

The opposition to mega projects cancontinue to be a source of proposals forpersonal and collective fulfilment outsideneoliberal logics. Creativity – one that is nothijacked by neoliberal logics – is decisive forthe future of the rhizome.

The success of some specific struggles couldbenefit the whole rhizome of movementsopposed to mega projects, in a symbolic way.Contrary to broad political and societalstruggles (against increasing job insecurity,against surveillance, etc.) that are necessarybut where chances of success seem to bemitigated, it is possible to win (within alifetime!) over a mega project. Some victories(like Eurovegas1) would be of strategicimportance for movements opposed to megaprojects all over Europe, as sources ofinspiration and hope.

1 Eurovegas, spain, a casino/luxury resort/etc. project, wascancelled in 2013

Challenges & perspectives

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