Note : 4/5
In 2016, we remember, the Labor law led to a strong social movement in France. It is at this moment that Nelly Allard’s new novel opens. Where we discover the torments of a family quite shaken by the events that occurred on May 26. Romain, the twenty-eight-year-old son, took part in a demonstration that day near the Place de la République. Not to break, to watch and film. By not expecting to find himself in a coma, with a sunken skull, after having received a disencirclement grenade thrown by a member of the police. An unfortunate “incident”, as they say, which becomes the starting point of an affair of state, with the intervention of the police chief, the Minister of the Interior and the press. A drama that both shakes and brings together Romain’s parents, Agnès and Gilles; his grandmother Françoise; his two sisters, Clotilde and Judith and his girlfriend Nastassja. Nelly Alard had already brilliantly proven her ability to recreate tension in “Moment of a Couple” (Interallié Prize 2013). By carving out each scene and each chapter of “La manif” inspired by real events, she holds the reins of a perfectly oiled mechanism.
Nelly Alard, “The demonstration”, Gallimard, 219 pages, €20.
