A group of people in Aubervilliers, near Paris, are occupying the city’s workers’ gardens to protest and prevent their conversion into an Olympics-sized swimming pool, to be used for Paris 2024 training events. We checked in with Natsuko Sasaki, a member of NON aux JO2024 à Paris and the Saccage 2024 coalition, and a participant in the occupation.
NOlympics LA: Can you give us some background on the Aubervilliers garden allotments?
Natsuko Sasaki: Jardins Ouvriers d’Aubervilliers means the workers’ gardens of Aubervilliers, if you translate word to word. It’s a public garden, owned and managed by the City of Aubervilliers. I think gardeners pay a token price to use an allotment, but I’m not sure: maybe they don’t pay anything at all. The idea is that working-class people cultivate gardens to support their lives. They’re not supposed to plant roses or tulips; they’re supposed to plant carrots, cabbage, or potatoes to support their daily life. Nowadays, many people do plant flowers as well. This garden was founded in 1930 — almost a century ago. The socialist government at the time established the concept that workers should have green spaces in urban areas. The place is well-situated, just two minutes from the nearest subway station, called Fort Aubervilliers. So it’s been a target of developers for some time. The gardens have already lost some of their original space. And the point of view of developers is that this garden, as well-placed as it is, shouldn’t exist, because Paris needs more housing, and such a nice place should be replaced by housing. That’s their logic. One important point is that this garden is not an open space. It is not open to everyone. Only the gardeners and those they invite. So it’s one of the difficulties for getting support from people in the neighborhood, because not everyone has access to it.
NOlympics LA: Are the garden allotments part of a larger park?
NS: It’s just the gardens but it’s really big. From an administrative point of view, there are two gardens, because one part belongs to the city of Aubervillers and the other part of the gardens belongs to the City of Pantin. It’s the section belonging to Aubervilliers that’s losing its plots because of the Olympics project.
NOlympics LA: What is the planned Olympic project?
NS: It’s an Olympic pool. The International Swimming Federation requires Olympic pools to be 50 meters long. Organizers of Paris 2024 insist this pool is necessary but France already has several dozen Olympic pools all over the country, so we do not think that this pool is really necessary. The background story is that the City of Aubervilliers wanted to have the main Olympic competition pool, the Olympic Aquatic Center. But there was a battle between the mayor of Aubervillers and the mayor of Saint-Denis, and Saint-Denis won — they got the Olympic Aquatic Center. So to compensate the City of Aubervilliers, the Olympic Delivery Authority proposed a training pool, which will not be used for the competition during Paris 2024, but just for training. So we think it’s not really necessary to have this big pool in such a working-class neighborhood in Aubervilliers.
NOlympics LA: It’s so interesting that developers have wanted to develop this land for a while. That fits with so many other Olympics stories, right? The land Vila Autódromo [a favela adjacent to Rio’s Olympic Park site] was on in Rio — developers had wanted to develop that for decades. And then finally the Olympics gave them the excuse they needed to justify it.
NS: Yes it’s really a parallel. As you may know, Paris was a candidate city for 2012 and 1992. And each time the City of Aubervilliers has planned to have a pool. It’s a decades-long dream of the communist mayors of this city. The important point is that they had to wait until finally Paris won the Games. Otherwise it was impossible for them to obtain a big Olympic pool.
NOlympics LA: What does Jardins à Defendre mean?
NS: Jardins à Defendre (JAD) literally means Gardens to Defend. This is of course inspired by Zone à Defendre, ZAD, which has been really active since the victory of the struggle in Notre Dame des Landes. It was a struggle against a new airport in the region of Brittany. So we call our occupation here Jardins à Defendre in honor of other struggles all over France.
NOlympics LA: Who’s involved in occupying the Aubervilliers gardens and why are they there?
NS: Some gardeners. They’re not happy with the destruction of their own gardens. But they’re really a minority. Most gardeners are not against the project — just a very small portion of gardeners are determined to fight against it. Most of what we call the JADistes, people in JAD, are supporters of the resisting gardeners, mostly young climate activists. Jardins à Defendre’s strategy is occupation, which has been used against many Grands Projects Inutiles et Imposés (Unnecessary and Imposed Mega-Projects).
NOlympics LA: What are the goals of JAD?
NS: We’re fighting to preserve the gardens, to save many birds, trees, and small animals like hedgehogs, which have become a symbol of our struggle. We’re here to preserve the green space here and the species that live here. An important point is that some of the occupants are not against the Olympics. Especially at the beginning of the struggle, it was gardeners and architects who led this struggle and their strategy was to present an alternative plan for the Olympic pool project. The current project calls for an Olympic pool as well as a solarium. I don’t know what this is really, I’ve never been to a solarium in my life. But the architect believes it is specifically the solarium which will destroy our gardens. So he presented a Plan B for the Olympic pool without the solarium. But in my point of view, JAD relied on this Plan B for too long. Now, many people are realizing it wasn’t a good strategy because a bulldozer came here [last Thursday]. So some people are thinking we should have taken a different approach from the beginning. Many people here are thinking, no, we have to fight something bigger behind this specific pool — for some, it’s the Olympics, for others it’s the gentrification of Grand Paris, the surrounding suburbs of Paris, or the further metropolization of French capital.
NOlympics LA: Interesting, so these internal conversations are happening.
NS: Yep, they’ve been happening since the arrival of the bulldozer, and since the occupation of the garden. With the occupation, this concrete action, more people came. Newer, younger, more radical people came, and the conversation is shifting at each meeting.
NOlympics LA: There’s another parallel between what you’re describing and Vila Autódromo, where residents put together an alternative plan, developed with architects as well, showing how you could have the Olympic Park right next to the community and only relocate a few households within the neighborhood. And the Olympic Committee and the City of Rio just ignored it and went ahead with the plan that involved demolishing most of the neighborhood. It’s wild to hear such similarities happening in Paris as well.
NS: Yes, I’d heard the story of this Plan B by Vila Autódromo and architects. Maybe it’s time to rethink the way we fight with architects. Because if architects propose an alternative plan, it means they believe that negotiation is possible with the authorities or Olympics organizers. And what we want, based on our own experience, is total opposition. Negotiation has never worked. It never worked in Rio de Janeiro, it didn’t work in Tokyo, it hasn’t worked in Paris. We just say, ‘no.’ It’s the only strategy that will work.
NOlympics LA: Agreed! Let’s talk a bit about what the occupation is like physically.
NS: I don’t know if you know a lot about Zone à Defendre in Notre Dame des Landes, but in this famous struggle in France people occupied houses. Here in our Jardins à Defendre, there are not houses but there are some garden sheds — which are not meant for people to live in permanently, but we are living here. There are only a few people staying here permanently. Mostly we come here to spend one night at a time. It’s like camping, collective camping. The point is that at least someone is here at any time to sustain the occupation. Some people enjoy camping, especially the young people. I personally didn’t enjoy sleeping here so much — I’m not a big fan of camping! But it’s because I’m a spoiled middle aged woman. We don’t have electricity. We do have water but not in all the places we want it.