1001 reasons to hate Lafarge-Holcim

Lafarge-Holcim is asphyxiating us : in Bouc-Bel-Air, close to Marseille, they are burning tires to keep their furnaces going, in Cimencam (Cameroon) their chimneys don’t have a filter and the city of Barroso (Brazil) is regularly covered in a fine layer of extremely polluting dust, etc, etc. Their factories are killing everywhere in the world, either directly through causing cancers to the neighboring populations, or indirectly through air pollution and the consequences of the climate change they cause. The fabrication of cement is one of the top CO2 emitters worldwide, responsible for 8% of global emissions in 2022.

Lafarge-Holcim is poisoning our rivers : in the very heart of Paris, they are dumping their used waters into the Seine, in New York State, their factory causes an immense pollution to the Hudson River, etc, etc. Particles of cement, chemical liquids, microfibres and plastic are transforming the rivers of the entire world into open air garbage dumps, killing fish and their habitats.

Lafarge-Holcim is destroying our soil and the bottom of the ocean : concrete is the world’s biggest sand consumer. After water, sand is the second most exploited resource in the world, and Lafarge is one of its primary beneficiaries. From Saint-Colomban in France to India, from the coasts of Brittany to the Moroccan ones, this exploitation is a multifaceted disaster : polluted groundwater, disappearing beaches, erosion, destruction of ecosystems, both on the land and marine, artificialization of soil…

Lafarge-Holcim are literally drowning the world in concrete. They produce the precise grey material that is indispensable for all the big, harmful and absurd projects (the Olympic Games, Grand Paris (1), the ex-airport of Notre-Dame-des-Landes (2), Bure (3), Stocamine (4)…) and they contribute to the destruction of fertile soil, wetlands and forests and to the displacement of those who inhabit them. Because concrete is the very essence of their profit, they are using their influence to ensure that it is used everywhere, both in private and public projects.

Lafarge-Holcim is a criminal, predatory and neo-colonial enterprise that is very often profiting from states’ secret services to expand its empire. In France, they are still on trial for complicity in crimes against humanity and the financing of terrorism, in plain sight of the French government. Notably, they kept their factory in Jalabiya open in the midst of a civil war and grossly payed the Islamic state thus endangering the lives of their Syrian employees. An episode which reminds us of the fact that the business collaborated, as many others also, with the nazis to build nothing less but the Atlantic wall.

Let’s fight against concrete !

There are countless local mobilizations and battles – here against the expansion of a quarry, there against the air pollution of a cement plant, or elsewhere against the extraction of marine sands. From Saint-Colomban in the West of France to the ZAD de la Colline in Switzerland, these battles grow ever stronger and more lively. We are even seeing coalitions emerge, such as the “Fin de carrières 44″ (5). These local battles are joined by actions that have been multiplying in recent years. Extinction Rebellion, youth climate strikes, the Land Uprisings (6) or autonomous groups without names : we are no longer counting the unannounced visits in cement plants, blocking them for a day or sometimes longer.

These actions and those local conflicts are opening up a debate in which we can imagine a world that is free from the concrete.

But considering that the world is literally upside down, this business benefits from all institutional imaginable favors. And instead of them, it’s activists who are prosecuted by the police and the states’ judicial arsenal. In France, the investigation of the intrusion in a cement plant in Bouc-Bel-Air was passed over to the anti-terrorist sub-direction. 31 people have been taken into custody for up to 96 hours. Two of them are currently facing trial. The inhabitants of the ZAD de la Colline in Switzerland also faced repressions consisting of surveillance, profiling and trial. One person was imprisoned for three months.

The goal of this criminalization is to silence all criticism and all hope to action against Lafarge-Holcim or another concrete business. They want to make us afraid. But thankfully, they have not managed to stop those who are fighting against the concrete. This year,a number of new collective mobilizations emerged in Lyon, in Foix or in Saint-Colomban (again).

From the 9th to the 12th December, we are launching the action days against Lafarge and the concrete world

This 10th December 2023, it will have been one year since 200 people broke into the cement plant of Bouc-Bel-Air, one of the fifty most polluting industrial sites in all of France, in order to stop it from working. Happy Birthday ! The magnificent pictures of this tenth December managed to warm the final days of the year 2022 and have become emblematic in the fight against the concrete. And thus, an idea was born: To mark this birthday as one of resistance, to show solidarity with those arrested and to show, that it is still possible to criticize Lafarge and consorts in the act, and to show the diversity and the number of all those who are fighting against the concrete.

These four days will be the opportunity to unite those who are involved in local battles, climate organizations, coalitions of peasant farmers, workers, and local committees of the Earth Uprisings. Not only at one place, but all across the French territory and beyond. With more than 150 cement plants of Lafarge-Holcim in France alone, there is no doubt also a concrete factory close to you ! Whether you want to protest in front of the factory gates, drop a banner at the entry of a quarry, paint some messages, trespass in a white blouse or in a blue overall, occupy the mixers to dry the concrete, block the barges to stop the supply, whether you are a group of ten, one hundred or one thousand, countless actions are possible, imaginable and accessible. Multiplying them will enable us to act concretely, collectively and joyously against their empire of concrete.

We want to make one thing clear in a single voice : the reign of Lafarge-Holcim and other concrete-conglomerates is no longer inevitable. Governments across the world have to stop covering up for them. Their crimes have to stop to halt the poisoning of this world. Other ways of building and living in the world are possible.

From the 9th to the 12th December, let us act all together against Lafarge-Holcim and the concrete world !

This call has been initiated by a coalition of local battles, ecologist and social organizations, peasant groups, syndical sections and local committees of the Land Uprisings. The complete list of signatories can be consulted, amongst others, on the website https://journeescontrelebeton.noblogs.org/, as well as further (French language) informations on the campaign and ways to visibilize the different initiatives.

Video-teaser : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhlAfoFDrPg

Campaign contact for information, ads and mobilization relays : journeesbeton@immerda.ch

 

(1) The extension of the public transport network in the Île-de-France region, leading to further metropolisation and the destruction of agricultural land (cf. Plateau de Saclay, Triangle de Gonesse)
(2) An airport project close to Nantes that was finally scrapped after decade-long local resistance and site occupation
(3) A nuclear waste repository
(4) A toxic waste site
(5) « Fin de carrières 44 » or « End the quarries 44 » is a convergence of battles against the concrete industry and sand extraction in Loire-Atlantique (44). It unites several collectives fighting against quarries and more generally against the artificialization of soil in the region. The region had its hight point on the 11. June this year.
(6) Les Soulèvements de la terre