On the western edge of France, 4000 acres of wetlands, fields and forests have become a liberated zone, a vast laboratory of autonomy, where 200 people in 60 different collectives live together without the state, occupying the land against a new airport project for the city of Nantes. Politicians call it “a territory lost to the republic”. The local farmers and villagers, activists and naturalists, squatters and trade unionists, who are part of the growing movement against the airport and its world, call it The ZAD - The zone to defend.
