French squatters join mainstream

A GROUP once best known for rowdy parties in graffiti-plastered Paris squats is poised to join the political mainstream, propelled by anger at injustices in the French capital's housing market. Julien Bayou, who helped found the grassroots collective Jeudi Noir (Black Thursday) in 2005 and a year later seized control of an empty bank opposite the Paris stock exchange, is standing for election to the regional council.

As a candidate on a merged Socialist and Green list he has a good chance of a seat on the next regional authority, a stamp of credibility for a collective better known for late night revels than political manoeuvres. "Behind our tomfoolery there is an important message," he said at one of the squats requisitioned by his student activists and young workers. "With each empty building we requisition, we put in homeless people. "I was struck by the rise in rents as a result of housing standing empty, and the failure to build new council properties," the charismatic party animal turned party political candidate explained.AFP