French police on Monday started to evacuate hundreds of eco-activists and anarchists squatting on a site in western France that had been planned as a new airport, and which had sparked clashes with previous governments.
The site in Notre-Dame-des-Landes had been squatted for years by opponents of the plan to build a 580-million-euro ($710 million) airport which the government decided to drop in January.
Nantes police have moved in to evict the ZAD (Zone to be Defended) eco-activist commune at Notre-Dame-des-Landes early Monday morning. Activists clashed with French police using tear gas over the protesters.
Ministers said the squatters had been ordered to leave after they had succeeded in getting the airport project halted. “We want to put an end to a lawless zone” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Plans for a “Great West” trans-Atlantic gateway to France and Europe were first considered in the 1960s and the Notre-Dame-des-Landes site was identified in 1967, but the project stalled until being revived in 2000.
Supporters of the airport plan, designed to handle 4 million passengers a year initially, said it would have helped economic development in the Loire-Atlantique region. An old, inner-city airport 30 km (20 miles) to the south was congested and a security risk, they said.
But opponents said it was too costly, environmentally damaging and that there was another underutilized airport 110 km (70 miles) to the north, near Rennes in Brittany.
Construction giant Vinci has said it is ready to discuss government compensation for the loss of its contract to develop Notre-Dame-des-Landes.
