Why defend La Baudrière
La Baudrière is an anarcha-feminist queer* squat that opened in November 2021 in Montreuil (a city in Paris’ suburbs). Many people meet here for a few hours, days or weeks. They came there to live, learn, party, and organise. La Baudrière is full of their memories.
Eviction is looming; for us, who use this place in many different ways, it is time to defend this space. We are collectively calling any non-cis het men to support La Baudrière from the 21st of August onwards. Here are some of the reasons why we want to resist. Down with the landlords and the evictors, down with the gentrifiers!
We want to defend the Baudrière to stop yet another gentrifying real estate project and to slow down property speculation.
Squatting is a way of fighting against private property that induces financial insecurity, poor housing, social isolation and environmental devastation. Rents are booming in cities, neighbourhoods are always more adapted for the rich, and the poor are pushed further and further away from the centre. The real estate project that is planned for the aftermath of the eviction of the Baudrière is a perfect example of the gentrification process that goes on in Montreuil: real estate agents plan on building a luxurious private residence and costly shops, so the newcomers feel at home as soon as they arrive.
We want to defend the Baudrière to be able to keep on squatting.
This year, a new law was passed in France: the Kasbarian law. It’s going to make things more complicated for the occupations to follow, and it’s also going to make poor tenants’ evictions easier. So it means a lot to cherish the already open spaces as long as possible. Defending the Baudrière shows that we want to resist and don’t just want to lose even more rights: we want more rights, but above all, we give ourselves the right to do what we want.
We love the Baudrière, so we choose to defend it.
Defend the Baudrière, its barricades, its houses in the trees and its beetles!
– We need people to sleep from the night of the 21st onwards (without cis het men); bring your sleeping mat and your sleeping bag. (Be warned, there are legal risks: we’ll give you precise and detailed info and have prepared the anti-repression aspect well.)
– Let’s meet on the 21st of August at 10 a.m., at the 65bis rue Voltaire 93100 Montreuil, for the first-day-of-the-eviction-period breakfast!
– If the cops try to evict the Baudrière or if it’s evicted, there will be a demonstration the same night. We can meet at 6.30 p.m. at the Place de la République 93100 Montreuil (for live updates, go to our blog).
– Join us for the 3rd edition of the Digitales festival: if the Baudrière hasn’t been evicted yet, it will be a good way to join the defence of the space in one way or another.
* in French, we use “TPG” (Trans Pédé Gouine) instead of “queer” to label the Baudrière, which means Trans, Faggots and Dykes. Labelling the squat “anarcha-feminist” AND “TPG” includes cis-het women as well.
La Baudrière
65 bis rue Voltaire, Montreuil, France
la-baudriere [at] riseup [dot] net
https://labaudriere.noblogs.org/
This is an abridged version of an article that first appeared on Squat.net.
