On 21 November La Casemate in Grenoble (France) was partly destroyed by a criminal fire. Ecsite and its Board members expressed their solidarity and support to La Casemate's team in this difficult time.

Crowdfunding campaign

The Media Lab, the showroom as well as the Fab lab, which were located on the first floor of the building, where totally destroyed by the fire. The exhibition space on the ground floor could re-open on 1 December. The team is currently looking for a site to temporarily host the Fab Lab. To restart as soon as possible its Fab Lab activities, La Casemate launched a crowdfunding campaign (text in French) to buy new equipment such as machines, tools, materials, etc. Participate by 15 December!

A criminal act

Clues seem to indicate that the fire could be part of a series of recent criminals acts by a local anarchist group that also attacked an electricity infrastructure and two "gendarmerie" (army-led police forces) stations in the Grenoble area in recent months. An anonymous message published on the local IndyMedia website stated "City administrators oblige greedy start-up companies and tendencially geek masses by opening fablabs in trendy neighbourghoods. Though seemingly heterogeneous, these facilities all aim at accelerating acceptance and social use of technologies in our doomed era. (...) Because they are a nuisance we have just destroyed one of them." [quoted here]