“In 1992, my partner and I were transferred to the other side of France. We were still young, without children, and we found ourselves far from our families and friends. As we were in a friendly, close-knit professional environment, we spent time with our colleagues. There were aperitifs, parties, and we saw each other during the holidays.
One evening, a party is organized by a colleague of my companion. That’s the day we meet him. Armand [les prénoms et les lieux ont été changés] is a very charismatic man, who monopolizes attention. He speaks a lot and well, with intelligence. He is older than us – he must be 45, while we are in our twenties. It is a powerful encounter.
Soon, we meet up on weekends, we drop by their place unannounced – he lives with his partner, Elise, and their little boy – for drinks that go on forever. We discover her too: she is a woman who seems calmer to me, stronger than him. We spend long evenings putting the world to rights. From time to time, Armand has big outbursts, fits of anger that surprise us a little, but we don’t pay much attention to them. Often, it is related to their son and what he eats. Armand seems to want to control his diet. Strangely, every time the little one nibbles something, it is not him he blames, but Elise.
The death of Marie Trintignant, “tipping point”
For two years, we saw each other a lot, then my partner and I were transferred again. Our friendship continued. Every summer, they came to spend three or four days with us and we made up for lost time. We asked Armand to be our son’s godfather. Then, in 2002, he asked me to be his best man at his wedding. I was a little surprised, because Armand was very close to my partner, but I knew that he respected me a lot, because I was frank, feminist and rebellious at a time when that was not very common.
In 2003, my husband and I were on vacation when we learned of the death of actress Marie Trintignant. I remember exactly the moment I heard the news on the radio, in the car. It devastated us. We were very fond of Bertrand Cantat. [le chanteur de Noir Désir, condamné en Lituanie pour les coups et blessures ayant entraîné la mort de sa compagne] as well as Marie Trintignant. This is the first time that domestic violence has come up in the news in this way. For me, it is a tipping point. I can no longer bear to hear about “crimes of passion”. I argue with my mother, who considers Trintignant to be a “forager”as if that could justify anything.
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