As it says in the book, the experience of the ZAD (Zone d’Aménagement Differé / Zone of Posterior Ordination) prompted him to write it.

Yes. At first, I had no intention of writing this book. I was encouraged by the editorial Gatuzain Hartu Lopez Arana. I did not even make a book about the umpteenth fight against the airport where [French Government] wanted to be built, because much has been written about it. I wanted to write about the project of autonomy that has been built for eight years, about the resources that have emerged in the search for another society: the ways of organizing life, what they have achieved or what they have not.

You've done this through interviews.

It was clear that I was not going to write first person, because I did not master the subject very much, nor the situation of the ZAD. I didn't want a book with an outward view. It was based on the words of the ZAD experts. In the first phase, after getting to know the site well, I made a careful selection of the people I wanted to interview. I was in March and April last year to do long interviews, and I came back in June to finish. It is precisely at the time when the Police carried out the harsh military operations to stamp out the areas of the ZAD.

In those moments of tension and risk, how do the Zadists receive a journalist?

There is mistrust with journalists in the ZAD, it is normal. They have been journalists of all kinds and the media have said everything about the ZAD. Some presented them as hippies and hot hair. In any case, I have not been treated as a journalist, but as someone who has gone to participate in the Auzolans. After I met them, I went on to work as a journalist.

What is ZAD currently in numbers?

About 300 people, however, are not able to give an exact figure. It is an area of 1,650 hectares, very extensive, with different cores of life, dwellings and stone houses, cabins built from corner to corner, in trees or on land. They organize visits, but people don't reach every corner. In the ZAD there are those who are living for two or three months and leave the place.

What is ZAD for alternative movements here? For Aman Komunak, for example.

The members of the alternative movements have taken the autonomy project of the ZAD as a model. The Basques began to relate through EHZ, the first brigade moved there throughout the Basque Country, not only by Iparralde. What's more, there were more in the South. People who have lived through experience have made their existence known and have woven and spread networks around the world. There is usually a special summer, we have counted more than 200 Basques in the ZAD. For the Aman Komunak project, the ZAD has been of great importance: The ZAD has been installed in the center of the city and aims to become the physical meeting point of international struggles. Through the Ambazada project, the relations between the ZAD and Basque citizenship are alive. People who have been through Errekaleor have aroused interest, something like brotherhood has emerged. The autonomous alternative movement of the left has led to the reality of Euskal Herria, which until now was unknown. That is, a people, our territory, our culture, our language and a history of struggle; and they've become interested. Relationships are strong. The Basque area is 120 square meters of ZAD wood, made of straw and mud, made in auzolan by which they have left in summer.

He has written about the autonomy, structure or satisfaction of the DKA. What is native self-sufficiency like?

In the ZAD there is everything. Some are enthusiastically working on feeding to achieve autonomy. And if you work well, you get it. They are organized in Bizigune, in each one there is a collective or group. Orchards and growing areas are well worked. However, others do not regard it as a priority area, but are doing so in other projects. However, all these collective lands play an important role in the development of self-consumption. They share projects among groups to demonstrate that ZAD can be an area of autonomy and capacity. There are different types of initiatives, but they are linked to a concrete idea. They also have a well-organized deal with people outside. We must not forget that for many years they had the external assistance to advance the project. They have been taken away with food and medicine, for example, from the outside.

With Marcel, Genevieve, Marsios, Benoit, O and Sarah.

I knew two of the six, and the others didn't. It was clear that I needed to encompass all kinds of views. ZAD is a place of continuous debate and there are multiple perspectives. There are different strategies around the forms of struggle they carry out. It was clear that people had to be involved in the overall movement. In fact, there are those who are dedicated to their corners and do not participate in the struggle of the global movement.

The interlocutors speak with transparency.

The truth is, I've never seen the humility I've seen in the people on the left. They teach nothing. They speak frankly of what they do not achieve or achieve, and of their contradictions. They follow the social reality, the need to use money. Some also acknowledge that they must act outside the ZAD in order to move forward. There are contradictions, but they can participate in local projects, local school or bakery. For example, they learn how to make bread to encourage collective eating. Those who learn well teach others. The courses are free of charge. They keep in mind the idea of the value of work, what they do is full of meaning for them.

They are concerned about food independence.

However, according to Marcel, “independence should not become a religion.” In other words, there are those who question their independence. Those that are not found in the crop. How many foods do you make? Only for natives? To bring it to market? There are different views. The truth is that those who have gone to the occupation movement from the city – the street people – have learned to cultivate with their labourers. From the cultivation of the cows to the assembly of a gas station. In other words, some people fall in love with agriculture, want to cultivate the land and live in it. Others, on the other hand, sell milk to a cooperative, the way of life and the work models are very varied.

“I have never seen such collective intensity,” says Marcel.

They reflect every time, that is, if a group wants to build a building built janitor, that work is collectively thought out. They ask the following question: “How and what will we use it for?” It is discussed about ideology, but above all about everyday practical life.

The interlocutors talk about self-construction: sexism, homophobia, transphobia, nationalism, speciism or racism, among others.

People who have lived in the ZAD for many years say that people who have settled there have reached a high degree of consciousness, have clung to work. There is no kind of judgment about the one going there. At first it tends to be “neutrality” with the unknown. In any case, in the talks they say that not all positions on sexism or racism are optimistic.
The field is wide, difficult to measure. However, these issues are being worked out.

What is the attitude towards other cultures and languages other than French?

I thought in his conversation there would be more evidence of pessimism. At times there have been a lot of people in the Basque Country, we worked in Basque without any problems. For the first time, I have felt an openness towards minorities through the various expressions of the French Left, they have taken the identity of other people, languages with complete confidence. Working with other movements around the world has helped to dispel people’s prejudices.

The first action was Operation Caesar against the ZAD and last spring the police dedicated themselves to devastating a third of the area.

However, after working further on the strategy of relations of forces, they have raised the issue and the battle with the administration. The State abandoned the airport project and the ZAD cannot withstand permanence. The ZAD is the model of autonomy, outside the organization of the State, a large network, organized by itself, aware of itself. The development of these values did not welcome the State. This proved to be Caesar's operation, but it failed. In the spring of 2018, he used an even more brutal model, an impressive military operation: 2,500 police, drones, tanks. It was terrible. The latter also failed to achieve its dissolution, and the State has therefore sought a negotiation to seek a solution to the conflict. He wants the entire ZAD to come within the laws and regulations of the administration, that everything be formalized. And of course, that game has generated “tensions” among the Zadists.

The State is not resigned.

It is obvious. But you're aware of it. The different groups participating in the ZAD are aware that they have to seek convergence in their relations with the State. They did in part in the fight against the airport. The paralysis of a State infrastructure project is rarely the case. It was a great victory, worth seeing.

Communication between the Zadists has been worked out. The cycle of the twelve has been an important initiative.

Marsios says that “there are peoples who dedicate a lot of time to the conversation in life, it is fundamental.” The ZAD debate is very elaborate, the assembly is a very important instrument, there are general assemblies. The cycle of the twelve is a group of mediators who, at the time of the conflict, seek a solution through a dialogue between the two or three parties. From the different areas and initiatives of the ZAD there is a representative who changes every month. They follow each other to resolve these kinds of disputes. They recognize that they have been effective many times. But they also recognize that the group of mediators of the cycle The Twelve has not managed to channel all the “moments of crisis”. At the moment, this group is not working, a quieter situation is needed to set up this type of equipment. Some local people have been driven out of the ZAD following recent police attacks.

Recently, a delegation from the ZAD has visited the local sub-prefecture.

Yes. The movement decided to negotiate or at least dialogue, which has generated controversies in the movement. There have been moments of tension: how to negotiate, what strategy to use. However, most have considered that they have to enter into negotiations, as all the lands they use, all the projects, are interrelated. So what and how do you do not expel anyone?

Not everyone acts the same way in front of the police.

They have endeavoured to use the means to deal with the police and to create a model of justice. It's not easy. How can conflicts be managed in an area where there are no justice bodies? In the book they recognize failures, but also great achievements: In ZAD, there are people who come from all over the place. All kinds of people have the opportunity to participate in this project, to capture a space or a collective appropriate to it, that is very important, but difficult to manage. Imagine that in the “classical society” there are those who have lived a heavy life and have not been able to take root, while in the ZAD they have succeeded. The person there has built his personality. There are people who, for health reasons, have been strengthened to leave the area and stay in society.

“The ZAD has put the idea of the common in the political imagination,” he wrote.

That's how the book ends. In this rural area there have been people dedicated to militancy in the city, who have experienced many experiences in politics, in the struggles of the left and right, and have built a permanent project in the ZAD. Create a community of people and get adherence. This is what a colleague who works in the line of autonomy says. “Those of us who have left Euskal Herria have questioned us, because we are part of a territory. But, look, there are people who have gone from anarchism to autonomy and who have ended the ‘land’ of the ZAD.”

It is not easy to get that confluence.

Of course, creating a community is very difficult. Drawing conclusions in such a short term is neither easy nor appropriate, but a community with a common history is being built. Experiences, debates and auzolans have helped overcome mutual struggles, community adherence and the great desire to build the future together.