CALAIS – From the occupants of the rue d’Ajaccio
Received on Friday 11 February: “Since the expulsion of the Calais Jungle the police destroy and evict encampments every 48 hours, prevent associations from distributing food and water, control and lock up displaced people at every turn, maintaining constant pressure and thereby putting in extreme precarity between 1000 and 1500 people.
The buildings wich were opened this past week were done so with the aim of opening spaces of care, of supporting collective living for people on the street and in need.
The immediate repression of these initiatives, as demostrated by the eviction of the tower, goes to shows that the state refuses all grassroots aiming to address the problems it creates.
This overbearing police presence fuels tensions in the area, as the police did not hesitate to gas families and groups who have come to support the occupation, filling the area with smoke and thus expressing the response of the state : extremely costly and violent means to silence initiatives of popular solidarity .
This morning, a helicopter of the RAID special forces was deployed to evict the occupants of the tower, launching stun grenades into the building while people were still inside!
Despite this, only one person was arrested and the rest escaped under the nose of the cops!
Support and strength to the comrades arrested during this occupation!
The only foreigners are the cops in the neighbourhoods!
Empty buildings, often state owned, are everywhere,despite the fact that tens of thousands of people do not have a roof over their heads in this country in the middle of winter and despite the fact that emergency accomodation for cold weather was not opened by authorities this year in Calais.
We want to show our solidarity to the neighbours who were forced to leave their homes for housing much further away from the town centre, and who risk eviction.
The rents is too high, housing lies empty, with or without us, squats need to be opened everywhere!
We wish to express our immense gratitude for the support of the inhabitants, their smiles and their energy as well as the solidarity canteen that set up outside the building every day.
And thanks you to the choir, we are going to get on great!
Solidarity has no frontiers, down with states and borders, freedom for all!
Calais – housing for all (logement pour toustes)
Video of the intervention (RAID agents threw two disencerclement grenades into the building where people were #oklm): https://twitter.com/CalaisLoge…/status/1492122578990866435
🔗 Contact: calaislogementpourtoustes[at]riseup.net
➡️ Follow on Twitter: @CalaisLogement