FRANCE-AIRPORT-ENVIRONMENT-NDDL-EVICTION-AGRICULTURE

French Minister for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition Nicolas Hulot (L), French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe (2ndL), French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb (3rdR), French Agriculture Minister Stephane Travert (4thR) attend a meeting at the Hotel de Matignon on April 25, 2018 in Paris, with the Prefect of the Pays de la Loire region Nicole Klein (5thR), about the ZAD (Zone a Defendre - Zone to defend) in the French western city of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, where the project of a new airport was ditched. In January, the government jettisoned plans for an airport that had divided the local community for nearly half a century, and told the protesters to clear off the farmland by spring. But some of the motley group of eco-warriors, anti-capitalists and farmers who had turned the 1,600-hectare (4,000-acre) site into a utopian experiment in autonomous living had demanded the right to stay put. The government said the main aim of the operation was to retake control of a key road that had been blocked for five years and evict around 100 "of the most radical" squatters from a total of around 250. The occupants of the ZAD said on April 23 to wait for a 'gesture of appeasement' from the government, after the presentation of 40 projects on the ZAD as requested by the prefecture. (Photo by Eric FEFERBERG / POOL / AFP) (Photo by ERIC FEFERBERG/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)