holiday, in Rodez. 20,000 people and 70 tractors participated. The slogan GARDAREM LO LARZAC began to appear all across the region. It means, loosely, THE LARZAC IS OURS, and significantly it's written in Occitan, the original language of Languedoc which is not used commercially but is cherished by a militant minority. Politicisation Mass rallies Suddenly, the defiant peasant resistance to militarism became a political cause célèbre. Left-wingers of all types took up the cause. Socialists, Communists, and Trade Union militants appeared in Millau and in the villages of the Larzac noisily adding their support to a movement that had originally been declared apolitical. To these were added Occitanian nationalists, protesting against what they saw as cultural genocide by a colonial power. Further complicating the situation, a rag-tag assortment of hippies and drop-outs attached themselves to the resistance movement, together with protesters whose motives seemed very remote from the interests of sheep husbandry - pro-choice feminists, for example. Writing in Le Monde (25 August 1973), Michel Castaing described the Larzac as "The shop window of protest". This phase of the protest movement culminated in the first mass rally, on 25–26 August 1973, at Rajal del Guorp (the name means 'Crow Springs' in occitan,) a natural dolomitic amphitheatre north-west of La Cavalerie. The location is inside the perimeter of the military base and so holding the rally there was an act of defiance. Between 60,000 and 100,000 people (the latter figure claimed by the organisers assembled to show their support, in a remote site entirely devoid of facilities for refreshment and hygiene). The event attracted world attention—speakers at the rally included representatives of revolutionary movements in Chile, Italy and Greece. Two members of the Irish Republican Army expressed their solidarity with the peasants of the Larzac and declared support for resistance "by whatever means are necessary". Police surveillance at this rally was minimal, with a single Gendarmerie helicopter overhead. A second mass rally at Rajal del Guorp took place a year later, 17–18 August 1974. This time the organisers claimed even more than 100,000 protesters. François Mitterrand made an appearance and was pelted with pebbles by militant Maoists. Since they happened in mid-summer, at the height of the tourist season, these and other gatherings inevitably had something of the atmosphere of festivals, regardless of the seriousness of their intent. Musical instruments and topless young women were much in evidence and commemorative T-shirts