Deferred Development Zone (ZAD) versus ‘Zone to be protected’. Analysis of a struggle for autonomy in/of rural space

International audienceThis article aspires to examine how, through the implementation of alternative collective practices, resistance to the Grand Ouest airport project (AGO) in Notre- Dame-des-Landes north of Nantes resulted in a collective search for autonomy in and of rural space. Part of the “useless imposed mega-projects” category of activism used to designate infrastructure and networks (energy, transport or consumption) that are more often than not rural or in the periphery of urban areas, this struggle also expresses itself as an “experiment laboratory” (Ripoll, 2005a) labelled with the acronym ZAD, highjacked to mean “zone à défendre ” [zone to be protected]. In a greatly restricted setting, practices can be observed aiming to redefine the uses of rural space based on specific arguments opposing the dominant arguments for privatisation and the merchandization of land. In this context, the “right to the village” will be understood as the protection of an autonomous rural space, which would not be subject to the competitive, predatory philosophies of urbanization. Rather than revealing the diversity of the political positions of the airport’s opponents, this struggle will be examined from the perspective of one of the opposing positions, combining the development of alternative practices and criticism of urbanization in a re-localization philosophy: that of the degrowth activists