In Cap Ferret, the Dussaux family in the heart of “La Manif” by Nelly Alard

JEUDI May 26, 2016. A tense demonstration against the Cazeneuve government’s labor law ends. Near the Place de la Nation in Paris, Romain Dussaux, 28 years old and non -participating, approaches a crowd in front of a small square where CRS surround a young person and await reinforcements. They arrive and one of the police throws a dissemination grenade behind him who reaches Roman at the head. Victim of a fracture and a depression of the cranial box, a subdural hematoma and a meningeal hemorrhage, he stayed ten days in a coma after his operation.

On the terrace of their house on the aisle des Tourterelles at Cap Ferret, Anne and Laurent Dussaux tell the umpteenth the facts, the sometimes strong voice sometimes trembling. “Here we live half of the year, we were there the day it happened,” says Anne Dussaux, a midwife today. This Thursday, oysters at the Mimbeau, a couple’s schess on this house, of which Laurent Dussaux talks about the sale, returning home in grumpy silence and the phone call at 10 p.m. from Chloé, their daughter who announces that Romain is in a coma at the Salpêtrière hospital. It is also the first sequence of “La Manif”, the fourth novel by Nelly Alard, on the poster for the literary school year this Friday, August 22 at Cap Ferret.

Incredulity

On the terrace as in the writer’s book at the interallied price (with a “moment of a couple” in 2015), the same persistent disbelief before a state which “minimizes and deforms” the facts. “Romain is first of all a breaker, then the victim of projectiles from demonstrators,” recalls Laurent Dussaux, director and screenwriter. The first videos come out on the networks, overwhelming for the police. Romain’s father recounts the prime minister’s phone calls, Bernard Cazeneuve (PS), “who, in perfect and benevolent language, especially inquires about what we plan to do” and the appointment at the Ministry of the Interior to try to calm the family.

A month in hospital for Romain, “miraculously saved”, and in the summer of 2016 in the Maison de la Presqu’île. “He left once to go to the market and thank the girls from Cocotte for their concern,” recalls Anne Dussaux. A second surgical intervention in September. Ten years later, Romain “cannot exercise activity, does not have the right to drive, lives in Montmartre”, informs his father. “He did not want to be considered a victim but the non-places revolted him and the 20 cachets he takes in the morning remind him of injustice. »»

“State lie”

The investigation caused by the complaint of the Dussaux family, filed with the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN), will indeed lead to any indictment and even to a non-place order in 2019, confirmed on appeal. “We discovered the state lie,” summarizes Laurent Dussaux, recalling that the defender of rights Jacques Toubon had estimated in his report that the jet of this grenade (projecting rubber pebbles at almost 150 meters per second) was not justified. The only procedure in progress only today with the administrative court requires the reimbursement of medical expenses.

“We just wanted the error made by this police officer on May 26, 2016 to be recognized. We especially want today to those who have covered it ”

“I did not first believe it then I discovered that in a country like ours, a kid could have half of the skull to be torn off without justice going, without even Roman being heard,” says Nelly Alard, who finds at the time of the second non-place, Laurent Dussaux. She once shot in her first short film (“The Vernet reactor”, awarded in Cannes in 1985). “I then proposed to write. An breathless and sensitive novel, nourished by interviews with each member of the family, where only Romain’s first name has been kept. “A family that rocks in a Kafkai universe,” comments the author.

Strangely modest echo

Nelly Alard presents his manuscript in Cap Ferret to the Dussaux in the summer of 2024. “He served as family therapy,” smiles Anne Dussaux. “We discovered the feelings of others. »Released in January, the book has a strangely modest echo. A cinema adaptation is still envisaged by producer Denis Carot. “” La Manif ” repairs the enormous injustice a little,” concludes Laurent Dussaux. “We just wanted the error made by this police officer on May 26, 2016 to be recognized. We especially want today to those who have covered it. Starting in Cap Ferret, the book also ends there, in the ocean that soothes. A little.

“La Manif” by Nelly Alard (Gallimard). 20 euros. Meeting with the author Friday August 22 (6 p.m.), Place du Mimbeau at Cap Ferret.