page_title: Fight for the Larzac
section_title: Civil disobedience
hierarchical_section_title: Fight for the Larzac / Politicisation / Civil disobedience
caption_attribution_description: English: Policemen and demonstrators during the military camp extension protest, Larzac, France. Français&#160;: CRS et manifestants pendant la lutte contre l'extension du camp militaire, Larzac, France.
context_page_description: The Fight for the Larzac refers to a non-violent civil disobedience action by farmers resisting the extension of an existing military base on the Larzac plateau in South Western France. The action lasted from 1971 to 1981, and ended in victory for the resistance movement when the newly elected President François Mitterrand formally abandoned the project.
  The base, used for training French soldiers, was originally established in 1902 on 3,000 hectares of uncultivated heathland. Michel Debré, Minister of Defence in the Georges Pompidou administration, announced that the base would be extended to 13,700 hectares and that the necessary land would be expropriated in the public interest.
  An initial informal resistance movement was formed by 103 landowners whose land was subject to expropriation. In 1973 their cause was taken up by a much larger group of heterogeneous activists, predominantly left wing, and numbering up to 100,000. This activist group descended on the Larzac in support of the peasant landowners and extended the protest to a more general action against what they saw as the militarism of the Pompidou government.
context_section_description: As early as 1972, the communard, philosopher and theorist of non-violence Lanza del Vasto had taken an interest in the plight of the Larzac shepherds and farmers. Del Vasto's commune, the Community of the Ark, was nearby on the plateau de l'Escandorgue. He and his followers were skilled at civil disobedience action, veterans of hunger strikes against the use of torture during the Algerian war, and against nuclear weapons.
  On 19 March Lanza del Vasto began a 15-day hunger strike at La Cavalerie. He was joined by four local residents: Etienne Paloc, Pierre Bastide, and Pierre & Christiane Burguière. Mme Burguière recalled the impact it had on them. In 2011 she told film-maker Christian  Rouaud "it was amazing, in a moral sense. When we came back, I felt I was no longer the same. Yes. Something had happened."
  Civil disobedience was also partly the motive of the decision to rebuild the ruined stone sheep shelter (bergerie) at La Blaquière. The property belonged to activist Auguste Guiraud, and was due for expropriation under the terms of the decree. On 10 June 1973 re-construction began in defiance of the expropriation order and the fact that planning permission had not been granted. Hundreds of supporters came to join the effort, notably the hippie contingent who had to learn the art and craft of masonry very quickly, and, it must be said, with somewhat random results. Pierre Bonnefous recalled:
  There was a mason in charge, and he was told 'Try and explain what needs to be done, and these guys can haul stone, make cement.' But the mason said 'When I see these guys incapable of holding a wheelbarrow upright with cement or stone in it, forget it, we're not going to make it.' So it was Utopian from the start.
  To say that the influx of hippies shocked the locals is an understatement. Marizette Tarlier recalled that it was the first time she'd seen bare-breasted women in public. The eight months of construction were marked by constant argument and conflict, but the bergerie was finished in February 1974 and stands to this day as a kind of monument to the joint effort.
  Another tactic that was used with success was to sell very small parcels of land to many sympathisers, with the aim of making the eventual expropriation as difficult as possible for the bureaucracy. Between 1973 and 1981, 6,180 tiny plots were allocated to 3,500 different people
  , and to make the act of expropriation even more difficult, many of these "landowners" lived abroad.
  In 1976, the fight escalated after soldiers blew up Auguste Guiraud's house in La Blaquière during the night. Miraculously, Guiraud and his seven children were unharmed. On 22 June, a group of 22 activists entered the Larzac military base and destroyed 500 documents containing details of the expropriation. They were arrested and arraigned in Millau the next day. They were sentenced to prison terms varying from three to six months, but in fact none actually served more than three weeks
  .
  On 21 October 1977, a series of trials of Larzac activists took place in Millau. A smörgåsbord of charges included disobedience of authority, removal of army property, blocking traffic, etc. The hearings were much disrupted by the deliberate release of a flock of sheep in the courtroom.
caption: French military police (CRS) evacuating activists
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