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00:00:02,400 --> 00:00:09,200
"My outer and my inner life have
been as the very poles - asunder"

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00:00:10,520 --> 00:00:12,920
George du Maurier
"Peter Ibbetson"

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00:00:14,280 --> 00:00:18,240
Henri has always represented
this kind of hope.

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Do you realise, taking
into consideration his age...

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You think "ok, none of us really ever
gave up but we all had moments..."

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00:00:26,600 --> 00:00:29,960
There are periods in my life in
which I did other things.

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Henri never did that.

8
00:00:32,680 --> 00:00:37,240
He can analyse
strikes and movements

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that took place
in China or in Tanzania,

10
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and it is never gratuitous.

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For me, he is both,
a Marxist and an anarchist.

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And this is what is
fascinating with him:

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he has a non-traditional trajectory.

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He is somebody who always
researches things, who studies a lot,

15
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who writes on what he is
thinking about, and who is into it.

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Who is totally into it.

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Compared to other people who are
interested in many different things...

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He probably has a different life,
but he doesn't confide about it.

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Henri Simon
The story of a (non-)militant

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First part
Outer life

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I started working in November 1945,
that's something you don't forget.

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I was 23. I started as a low employee.
- In the life insurance company?

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Yes, in that company.
As soon as I started

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working, I joined the CGT union.

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It simply seemed
quite normal to me

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to do something in terms
of just defending ourselves.

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Already, there was something
that was problematic for me:

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For the official union
and other representatives,

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there were the cases you would
defend, and others you wouldn't.

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There was a workers' ethic,

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for example, on the CGT
member cards, it was written:

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"You have to be
the best at your job."

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There was a sort of
criteria of the good worker,

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and those who did not respect these
criteria were considered indefensible.

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But I thought, those were precisely
the cases that had to be defended!

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When the strike started in 1955,
you were not part of the CGT any more?

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Absolutely, for two years.

38
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With the friend who made me
come to Socialisme ou Barbarie,

39
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even before the 1955 movement started,

40
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we decided to publish
an independent workers' journal.

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1955: Struggle At The Insurance Corp.
At the works council, a new wage scale

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is announced, but the major pay rise
promised turns out to be fake.

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A movement starts for a real wage
increase, outside union structures.

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They made us believe that there was
a big wage increase, like 17%.

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But actually, it was taken from some-
where else and they ended up saying:

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"We recommend a
wage increase of 5%."

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And that was only
a recommendation,

48
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which means that practically you
might end up not getting anything.

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It was such a
big lie that it was...

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So I spoke out to say that.

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After that meeting, in which
nothing got actually decided,

52
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spontaneously, some workers...

53
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most of the workers were
women, around 80% of them...

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came to see me and asked:
"What do we do now?"

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I said, we have to get together and
try to have a medium of expression.

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The first thing - at the time, there
was no photocopy - is to buy a Roneo.

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Everybody agreed, and 5 minutes
later, they gave me the money

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to buy a Roneo - which
was an expensive thing.

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For me, this is one of the
most extraordinary lessons:

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In a movement, decisions are
made in this way: No big debate, no...

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You suddenly feel that
something comes together,

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that makes a break with
what you normally see!

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While when I was in the
union, you had to harass people

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to make them pay their two
pennies of union membership fee.

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But in this case they felt
that it was actually about them.

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From Socialisme ou Barbarie (SoB)
to I.C.O.

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Before Socialisme ou Barbarie,
you didn't take part in any group...?

68
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No, no group at all.
And here, you see that

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political orientations
are a matter of chance.

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If I would have met a Trotskyite,
I may have become a Trotskyite,

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I would have met an anarchist,
maybe an anarchist... I don't know.

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The fact I found something that
was critical of the Stalinist system,

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it is true, I was lucky.
It was a guy at my work...

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At the time when I became
secretary of the union section,

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he was doing his military service.
So when he came back...

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What he was telling me, was
close to what I already was feeling.

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In the 50s, Socialisme ou Barbarie
was one of the only theoretical groups

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that criticized not only Stalinism
but also Trotskyism, while

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retaining a Marxist
critique of exploitation.

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Henri participated in the journal
from 1955-58. He wrote particularly

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about the working conditions and
struggles at the insurance company.

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How did you relate your group belonging
with what you said in the meetings at work?

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Did you present yourself as a Marxist,
as having specific political ideas?

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No, I always felt
reluctant to do propaganda.

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Because either things
happened in a specific direction,

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then I possibly tried...
And it happened that,

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in meetings, several times...
Like, I remember a meeting where

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a guy from LO party suggested some-
thing, and I suggested a different thing,

89
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and it was this different
thing that was adopted.

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You always find
yourself in such situations,

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but I did not say:
"I do this in the name of...", etc.

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This is an attitude I also had, when
I was part of Socialisme ou Barbarie.

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The funny thing is that, in 1955, when
we did this movement, it is the unions

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which, in a leaflet, denounced me as
a henchman of Socialisme ou Barbarie!

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Break With "SoB": At the end of the 50s,
Castoriadis, a central figure of the journal,

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tries to give to the group
the role of an organised party.

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In 1958, Henri Simon leaves the group
because of growing dissent on

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the question of organisation.

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When there was
the Gaullist semi-coup in 1958,

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there was made an interpretation
which, in my opinion, was wrong.

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There are those in SoB - not only them,
there was similar analysis in other parties -

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who thought, De Gaulle would do what
the Algers colonists and the army wanted,

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that is to establish
a fascist regime.

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They concluded that
workers' reactions would follow,

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and as new troops - the
students - were available,

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we should create a more
powerful movement: a party.

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And we were a minority who said:
No, no way. De Gaulle is not fascism,

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so if we need to get organised,
it has to be done in a more

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federal way with groups linked to
each other, not in a centralised way.

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And the break happened
because of this.

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In SoB itself, there were
not many blue collar workers,

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actually, there was one.

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The others were intellectuals,
teachers, things like that.

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So, in 1958,
when we left the group,

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or rather, when
we were more or less excluded...

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We created what became I.C.O,
which was a group with only workers.

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May 68

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From May 68 onwards, each time
something happened, I was there.

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Simon spoke at each
meeting of the staff.

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He was obviously attacking
the CGT, and denouncing their

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underlying collusion with
the management, that was clear.

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Though, he was not at all
supported on this by the majority,

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even from employees who
were ready to go for a fight.

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Politically, we got
on very quickly, because

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he immediately told me
about the group I.C.O.

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I got to know I.C.O. while they
had meetings with around 20 people.

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Very quickly, as soon as the
May 68 events took place...

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I think, once we were
probably around 100.

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I.C.O. really was his whole life.

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I saw his wife, I saw his
children, but not very often.

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I could see that
this political world was...

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his whole life. It was
not 90%, no: His whole life!

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Henri, if I exaggerate,
was rather a monk.

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I mean, he was speaking
to say things that were really...

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He was giving information,
for example, what was going on

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at his workplace, or
information about similar facts

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happening at other workplaces.

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But when it came to making jokes,
there were almost none!

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Or, to say spontaneously:
"Let's go and see this exhibition".

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No. That was not
his form of militantism.

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00:11:43,360 --> 00:11:47,200
Before May 68, Henri becomes
close friends with Christian Lagant,

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member of the anarchist group
and magazine "Noir et Rouge".

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A dialogue opens
between the two groups

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beyond the traditional
marxist/anarchist divisions.

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In 68, we published
in the same printing house

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with basically the same cover,
two completely different magazines:

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Our point of view,
and I.C.O.'s point of view.

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And in each one it was written:
confer with the other magazine:

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Noir et Rouge in one case, I.C.O. in
the other. That was not a problem for us.

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Because we always had a position
that was related to history.

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When we published an article
on Spain, Italy or France, it's always

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about the historical preconditions.

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And in I.C.O., it was always about
what is going on in the workplace,

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and sometimes, especially after 68,
there was the councilist position.

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I didn't follow these things at all,
I was more active in my domain of work.

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I attended Noir et Rouge meetings,
but didn't take sides on those things.

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- You didn't attend I.C.O. meetings.
- No, I did not.

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00:13:05,840 --> 00:13:09,200
I was thinking of stories that
marked me, I was a bit exterior,

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but there were other themes
that interested me particularly

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such as culture: I remember discus-
sing with Christian for a whole day,

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about writers or artists who are
totally reactionary or even fascists,

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but who are good in an artistic way.

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We had a long discussion: "We still
read them, but..." Really interesting!

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- Were you there?
- No, but I am really not surprised:

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Christian was totally open,
especially about art.

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I had more discussions with Christian
than with Henri about those things.

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Yes, I would even say,
I am wondering if Henri

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ever had a discussion
around this theme!

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In an indirect way, Christian
was almost at the level of May 68:

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Rejection of militantism,
rejection of a militant life

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separated from one's
love life or everyday life.

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Christian understood
this completely!

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When the proletariat discovers
that its own externalized power

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conspires in the continual
reinforcement of capitalist society,

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00:14:17,200 --> 00:14:19,920
no longer merely
thanks to its labour,

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but also thanks to unions and parties,

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00:14:23,680 --> 00:14:27,920
and state institutions it had estab-
lished in pursuit of its emancipation,

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00:14:28,160 --> 00:14:31,400
it also discovers through
concrete historical experience

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that it is that class
which is totally opposed to

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all reified externalizations
and all specializations of power.

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It bears a revolution that can leave
no other social sphere untransformed

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00:14:45,360 --> 00:14:49,680
that enforces the permanent
domination of the past by the present

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00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:52,480
and demands a universal
critique of separation.

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I was 20 in May 68.

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Before 68, I had the luck
to discover the S.I. and also

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00:15:00,520 --> 00:15:03,600
the pamphlet
"On the Poverty of Student Life".

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That was like a revelation!
I hadn't read Marx before,

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00:15:07,080 --> 00:15:09,400
I had only read
a few texts at school.

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I think, older people like
Henri and René Lefeuvre

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were already really lucid
about what was going on.

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We didn't have a clue:
We were young,

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00:15:17,680 --> 00:15:20,480
we were threatened with
a sinister future, we thought,

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00:15:20,840 --> 00:15:23,280
our life was already over
before it had even started.

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And all of a sudden,
hope was coming.

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We discovered things, different from
what the previous generation knew.

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00:15:29,640 --> 00:15:33,520
For example, I don't know
what relation Henri has with the S.I.,

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00:15:33,720 --> 00:15:36,560
but in the ultra-left,
there were many people

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00:15:38,400 --> 00:15:41,280
who were totally
refusing to read the S.I.

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00:15:41,480 --> 00:15:45,320
It was a real joke, I have anecdotes
about it, you would laugh to death.

200
00:15:45,840 --> 00:15:52,080
While we were completely in-
fluenced by it. We were into stuff

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like "everything we did in
everyday life was really important".

202
00:15:55,520 --> 00:15:59,280
Have you been influenced
by the critics of everyday life?

203
00:15:59,520 --> 00:16:06,120
Not particularly. Situationism
never really interested me.

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00:16:06,480 --> 00:16:14,040
The theory they were making,
the spectacle, etc., it was true.

205
00:16:14,360 --> 00:16:17,360
But for me these
things were almost obvious.

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00:16:17,560 --> 00:16:23,280
In 68, they did the C.M.D.O.,
Council for Maintaining the Occupations,

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00:16:23,480 --> 00:16:27,080
and they behaved
a bit like leninists, and

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00:16:27,480 --> 00:16:30,280
tried by all costs to
propagate something,

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00:16:30,480 --> 00:16:34,800
and in a very rigorous way. It is
well known, their rigor was directed

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against all those
they had come close to.

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00:16:39,880 --> 00:16:42,120
I.C.O. was the victim of it,

212
00:16:42,320 --> 00:16:46,600
as they wrote a very
positive article on I.C.O., and then

213
00:16:46,960 --> 00:16:53,760
to the extent that we did not follow
the direction they were hoping,

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00:16:54,440 --> 00:16:58,120
they criticized us and
attacked us systematically.

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00:16:58,360 --> 00:17:02,400
This was their quite classical way
to behave with all those around them.

216
00:17:02,600 --> 00:17:05,440
What explicitly was
their critique of I.C.O.?

217
00:17:06,800 --> 00:17:11,600
It corresponded to a moment when
they thought it was necessary to act.

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00:17:11,960 --> 00:17:14,920
And they were criticising I.C.O. for
its attentist wait-and-see position.

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00:17:15,240 --> 00:17:18,400
It is funny that in
one of the first journals,

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00:17:18,680 --> 00:17:21,120
when the Strasbourg story
took place, and the pamphlet

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00:17:21,320 --> 00:17:25,080
"On the Poverty of Student Life" came
out, there is a footnote about I.C.O.

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00:17:25,360 --> 00:17:30,240
Where they already denounce I.C.O.:
"They are good, but attentist."

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00:17:30,440 --> 00:17:33,440
Which means, "they do
not intervene". And precisely,

224
00:17:33,680 --> 00:17:36,840
we refused to act like
an organisation, like a party,

225
00:17:37,040 --> 00:17:39,560
and for them,
that was a major critique.

226
00:17:40,320 --> 00:17:44,240
Were there other groups that
criticized I.C.O. for the same reason?

227
00:17:44,440 --> 00:17:49,880
Yes, and the split of the I.C.O.
in 68 happened because of this.

228
00:17:50,320 --> 00:17:54,680
Because there were those
who thought that 68 was the start...

229
00:17:55,080 --> 00:17:57,840
especially because in 69,
there was the Italian movement,

230
00:17:58,040 --> 00:18:00,720
in 70, there were
events in Poland,

231
00:18:00,920 --> 00:18:05,800
so they thought it was the start
of a revolutionary movement etc.

232
00:18:06,200 --> 00:18:08,560
I had already been
through that in 58, actually.

233
00:18:08,800 --> 00:18:10,920
And I.C.O. exploded
because of that.

234
00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:14,800
Because as soon as
you project yourself into

235
00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:18,200
ways of acting and organising,

236
00:18:18,600 --> 00:18:24,360
the old political devils reappear
between Marxists and anarchists.

237
00:18:24,640 --> 00:18:28,080
That's what happened, and
only the small core remained

238
00:18:28,360 --> 00:18:31,280
who created "Echanges",
but we were only a few.

239
00:18:31,600 --> 00:18:35,120
Creation of the network and journal
Echanges et mouvement

240
00:18:35,400 --> 00:18:38,520
In 1974, a meeting in Boulogne is
gathering some former I.C.O. members,

241
00:18:38,720 --> 00:18:43,040
comrades from Belgium,
the Netherlands (with Cajo Brendel),

242
00:18:43,240 --> 00:18:45,760
and the English Marxist group
"Solidarity".

243
00:18:45,960 --> 00:18:49,400
They created the network and
journal "Echanges et movement".

244
00:18:49,800 --> 00:18:52,600
When I arrived in
Echanges in 1976 or 77,

245
00:18:52,880 --> 00:18:55,720
I was told that
it was a network, and that

246
00:18:56,080 --> 00:18:58,440
we were doing
things around struggles.

247
00:18:58,720 --> 00:19:03,200
We were not so many people
at the first meeting I attended,

248
00:19:03,560 --> 00:19:05,760
maybe around 10 people.

249
00:19:06,400 --> 00:19:09,720
Apart from Anne, Henri's
daughter, there were only men.

250
00:19:10,240 --> 00:19:13,520
I remember one day, when
a guy from the group said:

251
00:19:13,880 --> 00:19:16,200
"There are only men in
Echanges," and I said "And me?"

252
00:19:16,520 --> 00:19:18,800
He said, "You are a man".

253
00:19:19,600 --> 00:19:22,920
That was during the first meetings,
there were regular meetings,

254
00:19:23,320 --> 00:19:26,480
I don't remember how often,
each time at the home of one of us.

255
00:19:27,080 --> 00:19:33,360
The meetings were to prepare... At the
time, we were already doing the journal,

256
00:19:33,560 --> 00:19:35,880
but we were also making books.

257
00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:43,240
Like this one that I showed you, which
we did about the movements in USA,

258
00:19:43,640 --> 00:19:45,480
it was the time
when I was in Echanges.

259
00:19:46,440 --> 00:19:50,200
So several people participated
in making this book.

260
00:19:50,600 --> 00:19:54,600
I participated in writing
an article about the blackout and

261
00:19:55,120 --> 00:19:59,320
the strikes at the continental in
Edison, with 2 comrades of the group.

262
00:19:59,720 --> 00:20:02,320
So we were doing
this kind of thing, and

263
00:20:02,520 --> 00:20:06,640
we were also regularly inviting
friends from abroad. That was

264
00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:10,840
the extraordinary thing with Echanges
and Henri: the network of relations.

265
00:20:11,160 --> 00:20:14,280
We were regularly meeting
people from Holland,

266
00:20:14,520 --> 00:20:17,920
from England, from Italy,
from the group Collegamenti.

267
00:20:18,120 --> 00:20:20,120
There were also big
meetings and assemblies,

268
00:20:20,320 --> 00:20:22,520
where there were
sometimes many conflicts.

269
00:20:22,880 --> 00:20:24,400
What were we arguing about?

270
00:20:24,720 --> 00:20:29,920
First, the theoretical conflict was
about the very idea of theorizing.

271
00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:35,480
Obviously in the analysis of capital,
everybody was theorizing.

272
00:20:35,800 --> 00:20:38,520
But some of us
were going further.

273
00:20:38,920 --> 00:20:44,760
There was always the idea that struggles
were speaking by themselves, and

274
00:20:45,240 --> 00:20:49,720
that analysing struggles by going
beyond analysing the struggle itself,

275
00:20:49,960 --> 00:20:54,200
or trying to insert it in an
understanding of what could come,

276
00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:58,280
and in a process that could
lead or not to the revolution...

277
00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:03,720
For Henri, this was an intellectuals'
activity, detached from the struggles.

278
00:21:03,920 --> 00:21:08,120
I wouldn't speak of workerism, because
it wasn't exactly Henri's position,

279
00:21:08,400 --> 00:21:11,360
which was: "struggles are
theoretical by themselves".

280
00:21:11,600 --> 00:21:14,000
So already here, you
could not go against it.

281
00:21:14,320 --> 00:21:19,760
When we were confronted with
those who had leftovers of councilism,

282
00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:23,480
obviously, it was easy to argue
about the idea of management.

283
00:21:23,760 --> 00:21:27,920
I don't remember precisely the
terms on which we were arguing,

284
00:21:28,200 --> 00:21:31,800
but with Henri that was the
content of the argument. With others,

285
00:21:32,040 --> 00:21:37,080
it was about positions about the
restructuring, about the revolution,

286
00:21:37,280 --> 00:21:41,800
the current evolution of capital.
Conflicts that still exist, actually.

287
00:21:42,640 --> 00:21:45,480
Echanges today
(issue 146 - winter 2013/14)

288
00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:50,800
What is Echanges?

289
00:21:51,120 --> 00:21:55,080
Echanges is a network, not a group
of which you become a formal member,

290
00:21:55,280 --> 00:22:00,840
and it is above all a quarterly
journal, made by a few people,

291
00:22:01,120 --> 00:22:03,720
and mainly by Henri, obviously.

292
00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:05,840
- Hello.

293
00:22:08,520 --> 00:22:10,120
- Thank you.
- Thank you.

294
00:22:10,440 --> 00:22:14,880
- Your change, Madam!
Madam! Your change.

295
00:22:16,360 --> 00:22:18,000
- Oh, I am a scatterbrain, sometimes.

296
00:22:18,200 --> 00:22:20,200
It does not answer
the question...

297
00:22:20,440 --> 00:22:23,960
That is, what do you find in
the magazine, maybe?

298
00:22:24,400 --> 00:22:30,240
It is the idea of society
as class struggle.

299
00:22:30,840 --> 00:22:36,600
I don't write in it, but participate
in it, I participate in meetings...

300
00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:44,160
a lot less since I have this shop,
unfortunately. There was a certain break.

301
00:22:45,440 --> 00:22:52,000
And I do the layout, the proofreading,
some technical work, let's say.

302
00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:03,840
How do you finance Echanges, then?

303
00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:08,160
First the subscriptions, that
is more or less 2/3 of what we get.

304
00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:13,600
A part is put in bookshops,
another is sold directly.

305
00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:17,320
The total circulation
must be around 400.

306
00:23:22,360 --> 00:23:27,000
On workers' councils, do you think
times have changed in regards to them?

307
00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:30,160
Yes, absolutely.
I wrote a long article that

308
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:33,320
will not be published in Echanges
but in another paper,

309
00:23:33,520 --> 00:23:37,080
because something struck me:

310
00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:43,000
Since 68, of all
the movements that took place,

311
00:23:43,360 --> 00:23:48,680
for more than 40 years,
none of them...

312
00:23:49,320 --> 00:23:54,320
The last movement that created
councils was actually Hungary in 1956.

313
00:23:54,800 --> 00:23:56,880
Afterwards, none of them.

314
00:23:57,200 --> 00:23:59,600
And I think, this
is not by chance.

315
00:23:59,880 --> 00:24:02,680
Because the development
of capitalism is such...

316
00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:07,760
I mentioned that idea in
an I.C.O. issue, a guy said:

317
00:24:07,960 --> 00:24:14,280
"You give up on the theory of the companies'
management by the workers themselves".

318
00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:18,800
Thus, I wrote
another very long article,

319
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:23,800
and I say: At the basis,
there are always workers,

320
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:28,640
everybody, not only the workers:
Somebody who has an activity

321
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:32,960
wants to decide himself
on his own activity, and

322
00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:37,320
appropriate the
product of this activity,

323
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:40,400
it belongs to him.
For me, it is obvious.

324
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:45,120
And this is the basis of
reactions against capitalism.

325
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:48,840
And from the beginnings
of capitalism onwards,

326
00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:54,800
there were quite positive reactions
in the cooperative movement.

327
00:24:55,040 --> 00:25:00,240
The first cooperatives in England
developed progressively,

328
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:02,960
with the development
of capitalism, and

329
00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:07,920
because of this reaction to appropriate
the product of one's activity,

330
00:25:08,120 --> 00:25:10,520
and to control that activity. Hence,

331
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:14,520
both cooperatives
of consumption and of production.

332
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:20,920
Then, cooperatives got progressively
integrated into the capitalist system,

333
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:24,880
they became what
we know today, they still exist!

334
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:31,240
But in parallel, another
theory was born in 1905 with

335
00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:34,320
the appearance of
the workers' councils.

336
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:38,720
A theory no theorist
had expected, by the way,

337
00:25:38,960 --> 00:25:41,280
even if it became a
theory afterwards, and

338
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:46,960
it developed corresponding to the
structure of capitalism at the time.

339
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:50,320
Because the idea of
being able to manage a company...

340
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:53,440
For this, the company
has to be a whole.

341
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:57,000
Capitalism was like this
between the two World Wars.

342
00:25:57,200 --> 00:25:59,880
I take the example
of Renault Billancourt,

343
00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:05,080
you had everything: to make tires,
to make every part,

344
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:09,120
there even was a bank!
It was a totality,

345
00:26:09,360 --> 00:26:13,480
and, in this case, the idea
of managing the company

346
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:16,400
is understandable.
But capitalism today

347
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:19,240
is something
completely different

348
00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:24,320
from what existed almost
more than 70 years ago.

349
00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:29,480
The structure of capitalism today
is so globalised on one hand, and

350
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:32,800
on the other, it is very
diverse and fragmented

351
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:35,480
into a lot of small companies,

352
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:41,800
of sub-contractors, with assembly
lines, etc., but they work with...

353
00:26:42,160 --> 00:26:47,920
No company...
can be isolated from the rest.

354
00:26:48,560 --> 00:26:53,560
So it's not by chance that
the idea of self-management

355
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:56,880
and of workers' council
cannot develop any more,

356
00:26:57,160 --> 00:27:01,320
for there no longer are perspectives.
Even the most radical strikes today,

357
00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:05,080
their only aim is getting
more money, that is all.

358
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:15,240
What are the struggles
today that give you hope?

359
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:19,720
Do you think, a social revolution now
would surely start from the workplace?

360
00:27:20,120 --> 00:27:22,360
I don't know.

361
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:25,520
There are some positive things.

362
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:30,360
The appearance,
almost 5 or 6 years ago,

363
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:34,920
of occupation movements,
Occupy and all those movements,

364
00:27:35,120 --> 00:27:39,840
that are totally new: To some
extent, they may remind us of

365
00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:43,680
the appearance of councils
in 1905, on a quite different scale.

366
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:48,400
But there is actually
the manifestation of

367
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:53,840
a group of people,
often very heterogeneous,

368
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:58,560
who use methods that are new,

369
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:01,560
- the occupations
of public spaces.

370
00:28:01,920 --> 00:28:04,320
They aren't completely new,
I think, because

371
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:08,320
if you think about Tiananmen,
about Mexico in 1968,

372
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:13,840
the occupation in South Korea
of a city by students,

373
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:16,960
there have been, periodically,
similar things in the past.

374
00:28:17,320 --> 00:28:22,600
But this time, since 6 years ago,
these things repeat themselves,

375
00:28:23,120 --> 00:28:27,400
and, in my point of view,
the very positive aspect of this,

376
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:30,840
is an internationalisation
of this phenomenon,

377
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:35,440
which happens de facto

378
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:39,120
independently from
any form of propaganda,

379
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:42,920
only through the
development of a situation,

380
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:47,400
which shows at the same time
that all those who participate

381
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:54,080
spontaneously in this, are placed in
an identical situation on global scale.

382
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:57,960
And for me, this is positive.
The future development, I don't know,

383
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:02,400
but it is a reason to hope,
as you asked me.

384
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:07,040
How do you make Echanges and get
all the information on current struggles?

385
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:11,040
It means a lot of
fishing around for it,

386
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:17,200
by all possible means:
from a direct contact, or

387
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:21,040
a few lines in a newspaper that

388
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:24,040
make me go on the Internet
to get to know more.

389
00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:30,280
For sure, there are possibilities for
knowledge that did not exist before:

390
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:34,400
You can check the information,
you manage to know

391
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:38,760
a lot more on struggles than
you could do before.

392
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:42,080
And how much time a week
you spend reading,

393
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:45,120
and doing stuff
related to struggles?

394
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:49,200
I would say, it is almost 100%.

395
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:55,520
I say 100% in an ironical way,
because I have other things,

396
00:29:57,000 --> 00:29:59,760
I have contacts,
I visit people...

397
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:03,200
But it represents
a large part of my activity.

398
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:09,040
Interlude
Family life and militant life

399
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:15,520
First family
Odette, Anne, Paule and Claude

400
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:23,080
So here is Henri, Odette,
Anne, Claude and me.

401
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:28,440
I can't remember Sundays
when nobody came to our home.

402
00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:31,880
Probably, there were some.
But what marked me

403
00:30:32,240 --> 00:30:35,520
are all the friends who
were visiting on Sunday,

404
00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:38,760
and all the contacts we had.

405
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:41,520
I did not experience
them as militants,

406
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:44,680
for me, they were people,
it was nice.

407
00:30:45,080 --> 00:30:50,320
Between 5 and 13 to 14 years old,
you don't pay attention to the ideas.

408
00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:55,000
But I think, the fact that
meetings took place here on Sunday,

409
00:30:55,360 --> 00:31:01,600
participated a lot in the
richness of our education.

410
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:05,120
Some of the group
members were nice.

411
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:11,280
Not all of them were fans
of a relentless militantism.

412
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:18,640
And I was going to Paris
to see them sometimes,

413
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:22,440
when I was 15-16, more or less.

414
00:31:24,560 --> 00:31:27,920
But these meetings
were boring me.

415
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:31,640
I tried to stay
one or two times, but...

416
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:35,240
Each person explains
one's little story,

417
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:39,720
there is not much dialogue,
it is like in every group.

418
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:42,440
Three of them were doing
all the work.

419
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:46,720
They were sometimes
20-30 at the meetings.

420
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:51,840
People come, go, have a drink,
have dinner and that was it.

421
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:57,280
The journal itself was
made by 2 or 3 people.

422
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:02,120
Was your mother
participating in it?

423
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:06,880
Yes, she took part.

424
00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:12,000
In terms of quantity,
she did most of the work.

425
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:19,920
He was doing the noble,
intellectual work, writing, analysing,

426
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:25,520
and she was typing, doing
the stencils, proofreading...

427
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:30,600
She was the one doing the typing. Then
there was the Roneo in the small room.

428
00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:37,360
And then there was the...
How do you call it?

429
00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:41,800
...gathering the papers. And we
children were participating in this.

430
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:43,960
First, it probably was a game.

431
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:47,000
I think, after a while,
we were bored and stopped.

432
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:53,640
So there were friends coming to help
with the Roneo and gather the papers.

433
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:56,520
But our whole life was
organised around this.

434
00:32:56,760 --> 00:32:59,040
Because when my dad
came back from work,

435
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:01,400
we went to bed, he was
coming back quite lately.

436
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:03,960
I can't remember him
coming back before 7:30 pm.

437
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:07,160
Often we were having dinner,
he was checking our homework,

438
00:33:07,400 --> 00:33:10,760
that was a compulsory
step. And then,

439
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:16,000
we went to bed, and during the
weekends he often was in the office,

440
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:19,240
what we called the office -
which is now a room,

441
00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:23,040
where he was working,
writing and reading.

442
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:26,120
And it was a political activity.

443
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:30,120
Did he try to make
you become militants?

444
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:32,840
No, never.

445
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:39,320
- And Anne, did she do some
political stuff? -Yes, more.

446
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:46,520
I think they don't always agree, but
she did more political things than me.

447
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:49,480
I didn't...

448
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:57,480
...maybe as a reaction to this.

449
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:03,520
Maybe because I afterwards had
the impression that it was something

450
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:06,680
a bit invading,
for my mum as well.

451
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:09,800
Henri has a very
strong personality

452
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:15,040
that tends to stifle those who
have a less strong personality,

453
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:17,320
and I think it was a bit
the case with my mum.

454
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:22,080
It is true that her life
was always revolving around that:

455
00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:24,320
living with a militant.

456
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:31,800
1997: Henri leaves Odette.

457
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:36,200
In love with Janet, member
of the Marxist group "Solidarity",

458
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:39,640
he goes to London
to start a new family.

459
00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:46,400
Odette starts a new life in Paris
and develops a passion for theatre.

460
00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:07,400
Second family:
Janet and Claire

461
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:10,040
It seems he was really
permissive with me.

462
00:35:10,240 --> 00:35:12,760
My brother and sisters
opened very big eyes,

463
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:16,320
because apparently he was
a very strict father with them.

464
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:18,840
- Oh, very!
- So they told me.

465
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:21,520
But with me, many
things were allowed.

466
00:35:21,720 --> 00:35:25,880
I was allowed to do things
they had not been allowed to.

467
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:29,800
- So, I know that he changed.
- But times had also changed!

468
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:35,040
After 2 years,
Henri and Janet split up.

469
00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:39,400
Henri stays in England until 1991
to participate in Claire's education.

470
00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:42,560
2 years later, Claire
moves to Paris to join him.

471
00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:46,400
Did you get news
about your friend?

472
00:35:46,720 --> 00:35:51,360
They will bring him to the
office, I don't know where,

473
00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:55,200
at the prefecture, in order
to apply for residency

474
00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:57,640
by the end of April.

475
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:02,400
But will he be allowed
to get residency?

476
00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:06,120
They don't know. It is a
judiciary catch 22 situation,

477
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:08,480
because he has no passport...

478
00:36:09,240 --> 00:36:13,160
- Should I put something else
on the table? - Yes, plates.

479
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:40,560
I paste all the things
that seem absurd to me.

480
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:43,880
There are some more below,
it is a shame not to see them,

481
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:46,920
some older below,
it is without end.

482
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:49,400
So you don't see the old ones.

483
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:53,040
There was also one with Thatcher.

484
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:57,280
- No, it is here, I don't know:
Can we take out this one?

485
00:36:57,520 --> 00:37:00,600
It is the "Gone with the neutron",
it is a good one.

486
00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:04,640
No, but the one with Thatcher
that I put in parallel with a vampire.

487
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:08,720
Yes, with a vampire head,
but now it is hidden.

488
00:37:11,240 --> 00:37:14,280
I like this one
as well: the Pope.

489
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:18,480
Faith and order.
It is a good one.

490
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:33,560
We need to eat now!

491
00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:42,440
Claire, do you follow
all these political things?

492
00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:47,680
Not really, actually. The
whole theoretical part of politics

493
00:37:48,040 --> 00:37:50,320
never really attracted me.

494
00:37:50,640 --> 00:37:55,200
I do stuff... I am
more interested in action.

495
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:03,240
We do... I do things for RESF,
helping migrants in school system,

496
00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:06,640
we work together on this some-
times, we do translations as well,

497
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:12,640
but not... Maybe, it's because
I was surrounded by that

498
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:16,120
during all my childhood,
so I got sick of it!

499
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:20,840
All the meetings,
elaboration of new theories...

500
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:23,560
these things
did not interest me.

501
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:28,640
Once I said, you were not that
much ambitious and self-confident, and

502
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:31,760
you replied: "With
a militant father and a poet mother,

503
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:35,080
what did you
expect me to become?"

504
00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:43,160
Yes, many people tell me that
I am spectacularly well adjusted,

505
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:47,160
if you take into consideration
who my parents are,

506
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:50,760
and the fact they took
me with them here and there.

507
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:52,880
Your mother was a poet?

508
00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:55,640
Yes, and she still is,
more or less.

509
00:38:55,880 --> 00:38:57,360
Is she published?

510
00:38:57,560 --> 00:39:00,680
Yes, her poems have
been published in England.

511
00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:11,360
Second part
Inner life

512
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:17,720
When I met him and he gave
me the book "Peter Ibbetson",

513
00:39:17,960 --> 00:39:21,760
and for him it was an
extremely important book.

514
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:25,840
I remember that almost
everything was underlined.

515
00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:28,640
He was already underlining
everything that was important,

516
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:35,920
while it is a book that does not
even try - like in this short book

517
00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:40,040
Simon wrote, or other things
like his small tales for children -

518
00:39:40,240 --> 00:39:45,080
to bring together
the real and the surreal,

519
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:49,560
the reality and the dream, as if...

520
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:54,200
Simon always wanted to bring
together these two things, but thought

521
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:56,240
it was impossible.

522
00:39:56,880 --> 00:40:02,360
My outer and my inner life have been
as the very poles - asunder, and if

523
00:40:02,680 --> 00:40:06,320
at the 11th hour, I have made up
my mind to give my story to the world,

524
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:09,080
it is not to rehabilitate myself
in the eyes of my fellow-men,

525
00:40:09,320 --> 00:40:12,600
deeply as I value
their good opinion.

526
00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:17,720
I would say that
Henri's whole life is

527
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:21,080
linked to his political life,
of course.

528
00:40:23,240 --> 00:40:26,880
I don't know very well
Henri's affects, in fact.

529
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:31,240
He is a guy who has...
some kind of dignity.

530
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:36,600
I had never understood as much
of Henri's affects as when

531
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:39,560
he almost died and
wrote that little booklet.

532
00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:44,800
But as his whole life, his whole
passion, is essentially focused

533
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:47,920
on what we could call
"political activity",

534
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:50,280
he does not like this term,
and me neither.

535
00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:52,400
For sure, his whole life
was immersed in this.

536
00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:54,920
In fact, I don't know what
Henri's other activities are.

537
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:57,560
I was surprised to discover
one day, when he came

538
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:01,680
- I was listening to some
friends of us who have a choir -,

539
00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:05,160
and he told me:
"I love songs, I love choir".

540
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:09,000
He loves theatre,
something I didn't know at all.

541
00:41:09,240 --> 00:41:13,800
I could have discovered it...
I think he was a walker as well,

542
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:16,400
but I don't know much
about Henri's tastes.

543
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:18,640
I discover them
by chance, in his old age.

544
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:23,600
Before, I had no idea. I could have,
but, because the main theme was

545
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:28,560
to speak about struggles, there was
not much space for something else.

546
00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:34,600
When he came back to France,
I was a proofreader for a newspaper,

547
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:40,640
we met again, he even
came to pick me up at work,

548
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:43,440
like 30 years before.

549
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:48,160
We walked,
we walked again in Paris.

550
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:53,320
So we started to meet each other
again; less often since a few years.

551
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:58,720
And it is at this
moment that I saw...

552
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:01,520
that I better understood
how Simon was.

553
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:04,920
I saw to what extent
he had a desire

554
00:42:05,640 --> 00:42:08,080
that people knew
he was somebody else.

555
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:15,040
And that this person: a
workplace militant for a long time

556
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:19,880
and then - how could I say -
a theorist...

557
00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:27,240
That there was always this person
who had a desire for recognition,

558
00:42:27,640 --> 00:42:30,360
for his part...

559
00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:37,320
...which he would translate with
literature, with theatre. After all,

560
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:42,360
he can say: "But you know,
I like theatre, too!"

561
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:47,160
And for a man who did
what he did, who is who he is,

562
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:51,000
for him to say in such a
childish way "I like it too"...

563
00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:56,720
You think, he met many people
in his life who missed out on him.

564
00:42:59,560 --> 00:43:02,840
You really must see the
booklet he did for Judith.

565
00:43:03,480 --> 00:43:09,200
He did something a bit surrealist,
with cuttings, watercolors,

566
00:43:09,640 --> 00:43:14,120
and it is always about escaping,
a tiger that escapes from a zoo.

567
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:17,800
But there is one thing which, as
a school-boy, I never dreamed,

568
00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:23,920
that I, and one other holding a torch,
should one day, by common consent

569
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:28,240
find our happiness in exploring these
mysterious caverns of the brain, and

570
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:32,040
should lay the foundations of order
where only misrule had been before

571
00:43:32,240 --> 00:43:36,240
and out of all those unreal, waste
and transitory realms of illusion

572
00:43:36,600 --> 00:43:41,480
evolve a real, stable, and habitable
world, which all who run may reach.

573
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:45,800
I met him in 2005, I think.

574
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:49,520
At the summercamp in Poland,

575
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:52,240
I took the bus with my backpack,

576
00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:56,840
there was Henri, François,
and a friend of François.

577
00:43:57,680 --> 00:44:00,840
I went to speak to him,
we sat next to each other.

578
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:05,440
I don't know how many hours
the trip took, like some 16 hours.

579
00:44:06,240 --> 00:44:11,640
We spoke during 16 hours. I don't
think we slept, just speaking...

580
00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:16,840
Just like today: from
the geology of the Alps

581
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:20,360
to the last film of
I don't know who.

582
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:24,720
These are not necessarily
militant discussions,

583
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:26,760
a word I don't like much.

584
00:44:27,040 --> 00:44:30,480
He can speak about everything,
about homosexuality,

585
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:35,560
about how the family and the
relation between sexes change.

586
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:41,400
I don't have the impression that...
He is not used to it, that is clear.

587
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:45,880
It doesn't happen spontaneously,
but if you bring him

588
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:49,680
on these themes, he won't
be shocked nor scandalized.

589
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:52,720
This is something I like:
he is never scandalized.

590
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:56,320
In a general way, he can be
indignant, but not scandalized.

591
00:44:56,880 --> 00:44:59,520
Room 467

592
00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:07,360
I went with him to a medical test.

593
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:12,560
And two days after, he had
to go with the ambulance,

594
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:17,320
because he had a crisis,
in fact a heart attack.

595
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:24,680
He was operated on immediately.
He had tubes coming out everywhere.

596
00:45:29,080 --> 00:45:33,080
He recovered quite quickly,
he went to a convalescent home.

597
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:38,120
That is where
he wrote "Room 467".

598
00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:42,640
He experienced narcotics
for the first time.

599
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:45,880
Never in his life, he had such
an alteration of consciousness.

600
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:49,320
He doesn't drink,
he never took drugs.

601
00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:53,480
So it was a new
experience for him.

602
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:57,920
And surprisingly, even in such
a state, of semi-consciousness,

603
00:45:58,120 --> 00:46:01,960
of altered consciousness,
his preoccupations and view on things

604
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:07,480
remain the same: This book
is a science-fiction book that

605
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:11,440
relates imprisonment
and exploitation.

606
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:17,480
Of course, the walls
were bare, totally bare,

607
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:19,720
of an unalterable whiteness.

608
00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:22,320
So were probably as well
the base of the mattress,

609
00:46:22,600 --> 00:46:24,800
the ground and the
ceiling he could see.

610
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:27,320
They were exudating light and heat,
because there was not a trace

611
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:30,400
of those devices providing
an atmosphere totally adapted

612
00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:33,760
to his body and who knows what other
element of what he was starting to

613
00:46:34,040 --> 00:46:36,160
perceive as a total nightmare.

614
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:40,520
What do you know about the time
he had at the hospital recently?

615
00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:43,280
I don't know much, I know
what he himself told us.

616
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:46,840
I knew that he
had this accident...

617
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:51,440
Well, then...

618
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:56,960
After that I met him but...

619
00:46:57,200 --> 00:47:01,560
When we went to the
summercamp last year,

620
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:05,800
we took the plane together...

621
00:47:06,400 --> 00:47:12,320
I think it was in the plane or train,
he told me while blushing slightly:

622
00:47:12,880 --> 00:47:19,360
"I wrote a small thing, a short story,
do you want me to give it to you?"

623
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:23,800
He was all... As if... If he had
written a text on the struggles

624
00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:28,160
of female workers in China,
he would have found it totally normal!

625
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:31,640
But then, he looked like a
young man admitting to write poems

626
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:34,000
while he was supposed
to do business studies!

627
00:47:34,200 --> 00:47:37,760
It was funny. While blushing a
lot, he gave me this little text.

628
00:47:42,080 --> 00:47:47,200
Do you still have some "Room..."?
Which number is it?

629
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:49,800
- Oh, I don't even remember.

630
00:47:54,840 --> 00:47:56,200
Why?

631
00:47:56,400 --> 00:47:59,240
- Because I forgot
the one I had at Sabina's place.

632
00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:03,800
- But I don't have any more copy.
- You don't? - No.

633
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:07,840
- How many copies did you print?
- I don't remember.

634
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:11,680
I didn't organise the printing,
Helene did.

635
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:18,320
I will ask Sabina to bring
it back to me, then.

636
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:28,440
Somebody put it on internet. - Really?
- Yes. - On what page?

637
00:48:30,600 --> 00:48:33,240
- Wait, I will tell you right now.

638
00:48:37,840 --> 00:48:41,120
Shit, I am doing nonsense here.

639
00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:48,320
Would you say, Henri is a militant?

640
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:50,680
Difficult question.

641
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:56,200
Because we present
ourselves as anti-militant.

642
00:48:57,360 --> 00:49:00,640
It depends on what meaning
we give to this word.

643
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:06,960
We are not the militants of a party,
we are not looking for...

644
00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:13,560
we are not looking for
membership in order to get bigger.

645
00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:24,120
We are not trying to convince in order
to get more members or anything.

646
00:49:26,120 --> 00:49:29,400
But Henri is a militant,
that is for sure, because

647
00:49:31,320 --> 00:49:35,560
he has ideas and
he lives totally for them.

648
00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:44,000
Henri Simon
The story of a (non-)militant

649
00:49:46,080 --> 00:49:51,400
Thanks to Jackie, Lola,
Sabina, Alain, François,

650
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:54,760
Christiane, Frank and Claude,

651
00:49:54,960 --> 00:49:59,400
Claire, Anne, Claude,
Paule and Odette Simon.

652
00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:02,680
Epilogue

653
00:50:03,080 --> 00:50:07,800
In 68, in your talks, why didn't
you ever suggest the dream?

654
00:50:08,200 --> 00:50:14,960
- Because it was talks
adapted to the situation.

655
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:20,480
- But that's the reason why
strikes always end up badly then,

656
00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:24,920
when our militants adapt
their talks to the situation!

657
00:50:26,200 --> 00:50:28,880
Directing - Editing
Jeanne Neton

658
00:50:29,200 --> 00:50:31,840
Camera
Antje Grez, Andreas Förster

659
00:50:32,040 --> 00:50:34,760
Sound
Bruno C., Dane Rapaïe (Pygmée Studio)

660
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:39,200
Subtitles
labournet.tv