FLNJ- an organisation all of you should be savvy of.

Years ago, I travelled to the tiny town of Montargis. An unassuming town just south of Paris, Montargis is surrounded by the woods. The modest, hardworking people of the town had recently been victims of rampant theft, targeted for their tastes. Their horrible, horrible tastes. A group calling themselves the Front de Libération de Nains de Jardin decended upon the tiny village of Montargis, among other towns within France, with one purpose in mind- to free the gnomes. That's right. Founded in 1996 in Alençon, the aim of the FLNJ was to save garden gnomes via nightly invasions (see "illegal") from the very own neighbors gardens, and return them to their natural environment. Some 7000 gnomes were liberated from suppresive gardens and front yards and released into the forest, glades, and woods. Police interaction, obviously, was required, and many FLNJ members were apprehended with literature and tiny shovels and ridiculous wheelbarrows (forms of slavery), the gnomes already released into the wild. Many a startled hiker came across the gnomes deep in the forest, sometimes solitary, sometimes entire communities, reunited with their own kind, each one equipped with food rations, mainly pasta, and "night vision goggles" (painted glasses). Although things have quieted down significantly in the past years, the FLNJ do pop up ostentatiously from time to time, to remind the people of France of the real home for these misunderstood "garden art". Lest we forget.