It is time to return to work in the katzak and after the holidays. In view of the present situation, we must be more attentive than ever. Among other things, I should like to refer here to the issue of housing. Last summer we had the opportunity to learn about the Chairecoop research tool in Baja Navarra: this is the international organization that helps to reflect on Cooperative Housing and Social Cooperation. It is supported by different structures, non-governmental organizations and universities. University professor and researcher Yann Maury, member of the Chairecoop, was invited by the association Popular University of Baigorri, with which we have also been able to speak for a long time after the event.

His work focuses on knowing and publicizing cooperative movements around housing, trying to convince people that it is the best solution for a peaceful and just future. For a long time he has talked to us about two special examples. In the Vermont region, in the United States, and especially in the Manhattan neighborhood, in New York, people have organized themselves as a cooperative to completely manage the buying and selling of homes, with the aim of facing speculation. under the slogan: Thanks to the Cooper Square cooperative, in the Lower East Side area, the house can be purchased for between 500 and 800 dollars, and only at that price. In Rome, many squatter groups organize themselves as cooperatives and manage to reach agreements with the People’s House.

These experiences can be related, of course, to those we already know in the Basque Country, with those that have as their axis self-management, horizontality, auzolan, citizenship, the fight against capitalism: autochthonous (from Errekaleor de Vitoria-Gasteiz, from young people, from citizen associations, from institutions or from popular homes...) and external (from Notre-Landes. So only the words of Yann Maury gave yet another assurance about the legitimacy of these movements.

But the most interesting thing has, in my opinion, been what the researcher has shown about the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau: how a person who has always fought against speculation and in favour of the right to housing, once in power, has appeared invalidated. For Yann Maury, what happens in Barcelona and in Spain (over-occupation of American banks and pension funds in housing management) can appear in France in the following months: In the National Board of Administration of the public structure of the Low Rent Accommodation, the landlords have only two representatives, of thirty people – due to the lack of awareness of the residents or by the regulations of the structure – which has facilitated the path to the Elan law of the government, and which can soon enter the ordinary market, attracting the banks and funds concerned quickly, so that they can prepare their own reserves after the planned reform.

I could not say that power automatically corrupts the electorate, especially in small villages, but people will have to remain full of courage, both locally and from outside, to save their fundamental rights, in the form of cooperation or collaboration. There will be work already!