Interview with the collective la LOC(A)MOTIVE (english)
New News: Since 8 April 2013 the squat is in danger of eviction. The members of the house will struggle against that. Support us if u want. Infos will follow.
Contrainfo: What is LOC(A)MOTIVE
LOC(A)MOTIVE: It is the collective composed by the people living in the occupied house of chasseron 1, in Lausanne and the people involved in the place’s activities. 15 individuals are living at the moment in the house and more or less 10 are also participating in different ways. The building is a former Spanish college, property of the Spanish state.
C: When did the project begin?
L: the 21th of September 2012
C: Can u speak a little bit about the first days of this project?
L: The night we entered the house, we were about 30 people and the first thing we did was to barricade completely the house, in case of the cops wanted to evict us. The same night cops did arrive with 2 or 3 patrol cars after a neighbor called them. In fact, the cops just had a look and went away after a while.
C: Did the place staid barricaded for a long period?
L: The place staid barricaded for almost 2 months. People in groups were continuously checking the area in case that the police would come and try to get identifications about who was squatting the building. We did so because normally, when the owner of a squatted house complains to the cops, they use to come and register the IDs in the way of giving them to a judge to start a trial. This was something we definitely wanted to avoid, also in order to gain some extra time. After one month, the police appeared again, but we refused to give them any data. They announced we had to attend an audition, thing that we did not do at all. Then, 2 weeks after we received a new summon for an audition, which we ignored as well. The third letter we received noticed us that because we ignored the procedure, the judge would come at the squat with the rest of the court members and the representatives of the so called legal owner. After a long meeting we’ve had in the house, we finally decided to accept to have a trial inside LOC(A)MOTIVE.
C: Why did u accept to have a trial?
L: The debate was long with many different positions. The collective decided to accept the trail in the house, mainly because of a generalized fear that by denying, we would surely loose it.
C: How was the trial?
L: First of all we have to say that there were certain parameters defining our decision to accept the trial in the house. The judge would only have access to the public spaces of the squat, meaning the first 2 floors and the basement. We contacted a lawyer witch we considered reliable and who said his payment would be a free donation. We prepared a very detailed folder proving that the building was proper for living and we counter-attacked the false arguments of the Spanish embassy’s lawyer. Finally, our lawyer was not that reliable as we originally thought. One day before the trial he announced us that he abandoned us. Officially, this lawyer has never been ours because he never contacted the authorities.
For preparing the day of the trial, we addressed an open call to people we knew to attend the process in solidarity. Both, loc(A)motive people and the ones came in solidarity were dressed in funny provocative costumes, hiding in various ways their special physical characteristics. The feelings we’ve had during the trial were contradictory. On one side there were people eating as in any normal collective dinner while others were very stressed because we couldn’t count anymore on the help of a lawyer. There was really no common line of strategy defined by the people taking part in the collective. We had spent all our energy to arrange things with the lawyer who finally didn’t showed up. We later understood that focusing on the lawyer was a very bad idea. At the moment of the trial we didn’t manage to have a clear common line as a collective. Even though we had decided to permit entrance only in the public spaces, when the judge threaten us to continue the procedure without us if we wouldn’t show him the rest of the house, many people changed their mind and accepted it. Only a part of the last floor remained unviolated thanks to the initiative of some people to keep it closed.
Finally, after a short talk between the judge, the Spanish state’s representatives and some of the LOC(A)MOTIVE’s members, the magistrate announced that we could keep the house until April 8th, the date the Spanish state was planning to sell the building. If by any chance the selling would not take place, they said we could stay longer. In fact, from the 8th of April, we’re facing a threat of eviction. Of course, there is no signature of agreement from our part and none of our names were given to the authorities. So legally speaking, we believe that this is an invalid procedure.
C: What happened after this trial?
L: We focused on our projects and on building house’s infrastructures. Today, we have several projects on the run. Every Friday, we have a vegan public food completed sometimes by discussions, presentations or the projection of a movie. Every Sunday, an open door cafeteria takes place in the same room. There is a free-shop with a lot of clothes and some other stuff open to everybody at any time. A library with hundreds of books of different thematics found a place on the first floor next to a infokiosk with several booklets and flyer’s. At the same floor, we organized a children’s room with a lot of toys. Every Monday, refugees or other people “sans-papiers” (PoC) gather to speak about migration and the experiences of being clandestine and to write them down. Every Tuesday, an autonomies language school takes place. The sleeping space is on the second floor. Right now, we have place for more or less 10 people but we are still working on building more place. Next to this sleeping, we reserved a room for creative work with a professional drawing table, material for sewing and a lot of colors for painting.
Most of us needs some time without thinking about an evacuation but some days ago we started to organize ourself to form a resistance against an eventual eviction. In this context, some people are motivated to go to several places to have a presentation about our situation and our strategies. Everybody who is interested can contact us for informations. We can also organize an info-meeting in your town if needed.
Address: E-mail:
squat Loc(A)motive locomotive@riseup.net
chemin du chasseron 1
1004 Lausanne
switzerland