Police clears 'lawless zone' at Nantes

nantes - Approximately 2500 gendarmes started Monday with the evacuation of a large site near Nantes where a new airport was planned. An estimated 250 squatters are still entrenched on the site in Notre-Dame-des-Landes. French Interior Minister Gérard Collomb has said that this lawless zone is now being lifted.

The extremist occupiers in the field are called 'zadistes', after the abbreviation Z. A. D. That means 'zone to defend'. Thousands of left-wing extremists have settled down on the site for years to prevent the construction of a new large airport for the west of France, the 'Aéroport du Grand Ouest'.