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On the Margins: A Review of Precarious Lease

EDGAR TATE reads Jacqueline Feldman’s account of Paris’ legendary Le Bloc. 

 

It is difficult to talk about Precarious Lease in a way which does not feel reductive. It is about the Parisian squats, and how they came to be. It is about finding ways to live and make art in late capitalism, and the realities of living on the margins of society. It is about people, and the ethics of journalism, and about the author herself. 

The narrative follows Feldman loosely over the course of her years in France, from her first tentative interactions with the squatters, to her time staying at the claimed buildings, and participating in opening new squats herself. At the centre of this is Le Bloc, disputed to be the largest squat ever. Formerly a governmental building, it was occupied and reopened at the end of 2012, under the guise of a New Year’s party. Le Bloc would persist for another year, hosting residents and tourists from across Europe and beyond, until a final eviction in December of 2013.

Courtesy of Fitzcarraldo Editions.

There is a magic to the squats, one which makes it easy to see how Feldman was drawn in for so many years. They were, in her account, manifestations of “the city’s unconsciousness”, and became “where the myths of the city came to roost”. How these sites connect to the world of French bureaucracy, and how they are a product thereof, becomes a key interest of the book. In discussing matters such as the unspoken “Winter truce” against Winter evictions, or the manner in which the legalities are driven by political expediency—for example, by approaches to the Calais migrant slumFeldman exposes the overlapping areas of social greyzone. 

But suggesting that Precarious Lease is only interested in the squats as a socioeconomic accident would be doing it a disservice. It is their irreducibility, rather, which lends them a certain magic, as Feldman grapples with their manifold role as places of refuge, and sites of rebellion, as well as with the violence and abuse they facilitated. A microcosm of this struggle is her investigation of the “tontons”—men who maintained order within the squats, serving as both administrators and enforcers. At times benevolent, though often abusive, their role oscillates between that of countercultural crusaders, and opportunistic exploiters, a duality which proves irreconcilable.

Feldman highlights the role of creativity in those settings, frequently attracting or producing artists. Oftentimes, creative merit of a squat would persuade authorities to look to it more favourably. At the immediate level, such could stave off brutal evictions, and opened up the possibility for the titular “precarious lease”. Something like an award of legitimacy, squatters could then become legal tenants, protected from eviction at the cost of freedoms of living outside the law: though overnight residence might no longer be allowed, the building could still serve as a workspace.

“Art was, in this context, that which allowed the squatters, the artists, to go on living”, Feldman observes. “Useless, it was useful all over again. Art bought or borrowed time. That’s what it was good for: a front. I had been wondering. Here, at least, provisionally, was an answer.” There is a genuine romance to the idea that art could find its meaning in supporting this marginal culture, despite the edge of irony. Though, the dynamic between artists and other squatters remains complex in the book: some viewed the creative output as merely an affected sideshow, and those who signed contracts with the government—as “sellouts” or “scabs”.

But key to the book is an essential humanism. More than just a historical record of Le Bloc, Precarious Lease notably accounts for those who lived in the squat through a lens at times unflattering, yet persistently compassionate. Such is the case for the story of Ludo, one of the darkest moments of the book, nonetheless steeped in striking empathy. As the squatter dies of drug-related circumstances—“the squat swallow[s] him”—a sense of deep mourning is expressed, and a disdain for a reality in which “nobody helps anybody”.

Alongside this is an appreciation—if not an admiration—for the squatters’ lifestyle, imbued with vitality. Enigmatic tonton Le Général, the supposed leader of Le Bloc, lives “inside the margin of the margin of society”, and yet, adventurously explores the world “like Tom Sawyer”, opening squats as part of both a “service to the poor” and a route to avoid prison. Feldman asks herself, as she considers spending time in the squat: “these people who have become my characters—could I join them in their expansiveness?” The story of the book extends over years, both before and after the operation of Le Bloc. Feldman follows on with a broad cast of individuals, which includes the preeminent Le Général, an impromptu band comprising Russian, Japanese and Togolese musicians, an all-female Ukrainian activist group, and a set of filmmakers creating a record of their own. The leading belief, perhaps, is that to describe Le Bloc, it is necessary to understand all those who lived within it: how they came to be there, how they lived their lives, and how it changed them.  

There is something of Down and Out in Paris and London about all this—Orwell’s record of poverty still echoes here, almost a century later. Prominent once again at the fringe of European society are the dire effects of political turbulence and economic upheaval; the delicate communities formed by mass migration; and abnormal scenes of happiness alongside misery, characterised in Le Bloc by the oversized disco ball hung by the residents. With so much of the world now changed about us, it is in some ways a relief to find something which speaks to an enduring character of humanity. Maybe, a hundred years on, some other reviewer will be looking back to Feldman from a world which feels just as far removed. 

 

Precarious Lease is forthcoming from Fitzcarraldo Editions on 30.01. Featured image courtesy of Benoit Méry.

 

CategoriesEdgar Tate