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Saturday, July 28, 2012

Resistance Rue Chantilly


Sometimes strolling in Paris street can be full of surprises..

Paris is a city where all buildings have same style. Excepted Monpernasse building (reason of many "parisians" discontent). Only Eiffel Tour has the authority to look down at the city. So that the "normal" buildings are at most level 7 storeys high.


On the first three floors, appartments are expensive and easy to access. And the more you go up the more corridors are tightier and rooms tinier.

So I was nearabout the Gard de Nord. I saw a bridge. I get on. Then I noticed this. A home of a resistant.

This is a flat of a 46 years old man. He receptionned a government notice to leave his house two months ago. Refusing to leave he reminds that: " It is not a house: it's my home" and protests the right to expel him out.

I first drew near because it seemed like an art work. Well, it was, but in addition, every bit of it seems depicting the truth and there's a human being's life behind there. On the door we can read a short biographie. There's a reading corner, listening corner, justice corner, and pleading corner. You suddenly realize that he's intelligent and doing it right, and you realize injustice done to him.


The door displays a breif summary of events. He declares having worked for 26 years in bad conditions : attitude of boss, health problems, a meager salary... Now that he's a bit disable : partially paralyzed, he's been dismissed without any valid reason and compensation.

He needed a signature of his parents to sign him a garanty for both permanent job and for keeping this house. He's unable to pay his rent and cityhall expulsion notices are posted on the wall. Electricity, warm water supply is suspended due to unpaid bills.

He narrates how it is living in the dark, washing up with cold water and eating "cassoulet".

He writes : " Earlier, I was getting mad, but this period is over". He've moved 13 times in a period of 8 years. He don't want to carry on : " I'll live only where I'd like to".

On his resistant's wall we can read some questions. Only those who've gone through these problems can understand: " What's being hungry ?", "What's having fear ?", "What's being ashamed ?", "What's being cold ?".

And finally, he quotes Martin Luther King in his way : I have a dream : to pay my taxes.


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