Nantes, France

Show of force: French authorities deployed bulldozers, tear gas and 2,500 riot police on Monday to raze a decade-old anticapitalist protest camp on the site of an abandoned airport project at Notre-damedes-landes, near Nantes. In January, after years of dithering by previous governments, President Macron finally dropped plans for an airport to be built on the 1,600-hectare site, but the protesters who had made their homes there – turning it into a utopian experiment in autonomous living – had demanded the right to stay put. The tough action against the so-called ZAD (“zone to be defended”) – which has inspired similar anarchist camps across France – is being seen as an attempt by Macron to send a strong message to France’s trade unions, who have called a series of strikes aimed at forcing him to abandon his reform plans ( see page 19).