After the reports carried out in Spain, the United States and West Africa we felt the need to work in France. There were parts of the country where we had never been and it's a bit daft to always want to explore abroad while we are only modestly acquainted with our own country.
So from March 2012 to October 2019, alone at first, and later with Helene, I made a sort of "Tour de France" cycling 20,500 km over a period of twenty months. The initial objectives were to tour the country, meet its people, and continue the research, begun some years earlier in Spain on agriculture, and initiate a work on energy by visiting all the nuclear plants in the country, for example.
All those kilometers were bracketed in six "sections" of 3 to 4 months on the road. So to simplify: From Lyon to Lille, from Lille to Lisieux, from De Lisieux to Rennes, from Rennes to Perigueux going around Brittany, from Périgeux Bordeaux going up first through central France , and from Bordeaux to Lyon.
The first two "sections" happened without incident but in June 2013, in Flamanville, I encountered a physical problem. Major knee tendinitis seriously complicated my progress and it was only by walking beside the bike that I was able to reach Rennes in mid-July. A summary of the case: pulled head of a knee ligament and bursitis in both shoulders! So completely unable to retake the road after the Misses' summer holidays, I began a long quest to regain my health, or at least a little autonomy.
It was early 2014 that I first heard of Sivens. As it was not very far from home I went to look around and chat with the people who had started a ZAD ( "Zone To Defend") before attempting once again to hit the road, as I had gotten a green light from a doctor after an ultrasound of my knee.
Taking this step was painful because the ache was still there in my knee but by clenching my teeth (and often walking beside the bike) I somehow managed do almost three months of traveling. Returning in the summer (as always for the holidays of the Miss) I was physically wrung out and more than depressed. To imagine that I could leave again in early September was a science fiction for specialists. That's when the Battle of Sivens really got started for me.
As I recall, during this period at least twice (after the deforestation, and again after the death of Remi Fraisse) I wanted to take the road of the Tour de France (and said goodbye on site) but in the end I didn't go.
I felt that my physical disability might not disappear so quickly, but above all I was especially taken up by the story and it would have been very difficult for me I think of moving on. Following the evacuation of the ZAD, and after submitting it to a big photojournalism festival in the south of France, I'm finally back on my bike to trying to push on, not wanting to drag on this project even further.
I admit that these 3 months of travel were difficult both physically and morally. I realized that the Battle of Sivens with the death of Remi Fraisse, the deforestation of the wetland, the intimidation from all sides and even physical assault, this climate of small-scale civil war, etc, had deeply affected me.
Then there were new injuries: the COPs, a big labour problem for the miss, raging depression, several months of effort and pain in the laboratory of a young life-saving physio. And the necessity of building from A Z a new site with the help of my friend Jim as the former had become technically obsolete... But after this is another story! Developing the negatives, scanning, cleaning the dust from selected images, adjusting the colour, mounting the diptychs, all of this was exhausting work, especially the editing (selecting photos). We decided to present a lot of images online, over 1,000 in the end.
In the summer of 2020, captioning the whole body images was not easy either. It's amazing how quickly you start to doubt your memory. To do so we spent a lot of time on the internet to find various contemporary documents such as news articles, forums, blogs, leaflets etc. In many cases we took extracts with accompanying links so you can access them if you wish to investigate further. We are aware that there is still plenty to add, especially for those who witnessed these events, but it seems full enough to give a basic idea of what happened there during those few months and which several years later still asks questions of us.
I still regret the difficulties I had in getting access, from all sides but especially from the gendarmes and pro-dam people. But that's the way it goes, no one was under any obligation. I just want to apologize to those I know have been waiting for this portfolio, convincing themselves that they would never see these photos in the end. No, I did not fall into a space-time discontinum! and this little text will hopefully give you the beginnings of an explanation.
PS: As a bonus here is the text that we had written ""hot"", just after the evacuation of the site (in April 2015), in preparation to submitting this work as quickly as possible to a famous photo-journalism festival in the south of France. It can give an idea of the state of mind we had at the time and testifies to an awareness of facts that have only worsened since ...
The Battle of Sivens - August 2014 / March 2015
For those who do not live in France, the fierce battle around the construction of a small dam on a wetland in Sivens has over time become a symbol of a clash of civilizations, as Edgar Morin* wrote, which has played out here as in many other places on the planet. At first local, it took on a national character (even international in activist circles) when a young man, a sympathizer and environmentalist, Rémi Fraisse, died during the protests, hit by an explosive grenade shot by the police during a rally which took place on the site at the end of October 2014. This tragedy, plus the submission of a very critical report on the initial project, led to the suspension of the construction and the search by the Ministry of Ecology for a less conflictual solution.
By taking an interest in this story very early on, my intention was to document as much as possible this struggle between, as I sometimes call them, the “two Frances”, on highly important and symbolic issues. Schematically: Which elected officials, which democracy? What growth (the happy sobriety of Pierre Rahbi vs neoliberalism)? What future for agriculture (intensive, organic)? What adaptations to climate change? What regional planning policy? What relationship to nature (nature: sacred or market value)? Questions of legitimacy versus legality, new social and political challenges, etc. Cycling through France for three years now I observe every day a growing gap between people.
When I say as much as possible it is because throughout this photographic investigation I was prevented, intimidated, threatened, sometimes in turn or at the same time, by the various actors (Zadistas, farmers, police) and even attacked physically with the added bonus of a broken camera. For some I was either an undercover intelligence agent, or a chief Zadist, or a confabulator who claims to be a photographer ...
If I raise this point it is of course to testify to the difficult working conditions that I experienced in carrying out this report, like many other colleagues (from the press, TV, radio) but above all to say that this poses serious democratic problems. This in France, land of freedom of expression and Charlie! More seriously, I did not think that here the mistrust of journalists was so great and especially that their role was misunderstood by so many people. If you want to go to each of the camps, remain a free actor: for a significant number of people, you are a traitor, a sell-out, a rotten ... In the end, this mistrust leads more and more people to consult only sites, blogs, social networks confirm their own suspicions, creating between proponents and their opposite a dialogue of the deaf, sterile even violent, since without any common ground and full of certainties they no longer agree on anything or almost.
With the vote of March 6, 2015 at the Tarn General Council opting for the construction of a smaller dam (half the size) on the Testet wetland, we find ourselves to this day with two dissatisfied camps. Some still wanting the construction of the initial dam and others preferring the creation of hill reservoirs if not the outright abandonment of the project, given that according to their studies much more water than the initial dam would "sleep" in private water storage, and that before deciding anything it would be good to make an accurate inventory.
Which augurs a season 2 to this very significant story of the French political and moral situation. To be continued, therefore, but perhaps not photographically as the situations are ultimately repetitive, the documentary field reduced due to minorities in both camps seeking only to instrumentalize (more or less aggressively) the media and to simplify, to assume worn-out postures.
* http: //www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2014/11/04/remi-fraisse-victime-d-une-guerre-de-civilisation_4517856_3232.html"