How can you prove your innocence when you are convinced that you are not guilty but others have judged you in advance? Deux Innocents, the new novel by French actress Alice Ferney, immerses us in a human drama of poignant intensity – and all the more disturbing for being inspired by a true story.
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It’s a repulsive novel. who stirs. Who dares, because it is impossible to remain unmoved by the fate reserved for this woman who finds herself the victim of her kindness, her sincerity – some would even say her naivety.
“Everything I say is true; absolutely nothing is invented. The story was far from over when it was told to me, so I followed it and had constant updates on what was happening,” explains Alice Ferney, who was connected via video conference in Paris.
Claire, the main character, is a teacher at a facility for young people with disabilities. In September 2018, she welcomed a new student, Gabriel. Very quickly the situation took a dangerous turn. And for the first time, the author confides that she chose to write in the present tense “so that the reader is on the same level as the case.”
To fully understand the context of the affair, it is important to know that at the time Claire’s descent into hell takes place, France is in the midst of a scandal surrounding Cardinal Barbarin’s affair, who is accused of not reporting the sexual assaults have committed by a priest; exactly one year after the birth of the #balancetonporc movement (the French equivalent of #moiaussi). In this climate, “every loving gesture becomes suspect,” writes Alice Ferney in her novel.
At all times, however, the author took care to spare the various parties.
I never write to judge or criticize or tear to pieces; I always write to understand how things happened. Everyone has their reasons and everyone is right about their reasons.
Alice Ferney
“I said to myself: ‘I have to tell this story by being as absent as possible and I will make the reader witness to what is happening.’ The reader will enter the classroom, he will see how the course is going. Suddenly he will see that there is a charge and I will tell him everything that is happening and how it will be interpreted. And in the end I will say to him: “What do you think?” »
“Presumed Guilt”
In this drama, reminiscent of a Greek tragedy, which essentially revolves around a trio of women – the teacher, the student’s mother and the headmistress – and makes us think about the place of education, at the source lies a misunderstanding around words around, a diversion of the meaning of words leading to “presumed guilt,” Alice Ferney believes.
“Suspicion already destroys innocence; the other sees you as the perpetrator. And then everyone gears up, everyone follows the mother [de Gabriel]. Then a first investigating magistrate “who is doing her job poorly” accelerates the course of events.
Justice is human, and like everything human, it is imperfect. One would hope that the innocence would show, but it doesn’t.
Alice Ferney
Alice Ferney also says she is very sensitive to injustice, and even more so at this time when justice is restored. So is his role as an author in some way to give a voice to those who have none – and in the specific case of Two Innocents, the one who could not be heard?
“I like this idea very much. Faulkner said it, many writers said it… Writing is still something extraordinary; it is both an act of power and power because it is still the one who tells the story, who owns it, who enforces his vision. That’s why telling someone else’s story can become violent. It was Georges Bataille’s famous phrase: “To write someone else’s story is a transgression to be embraced,” she concludes.
Two innocents
Alice Ferney
Southern nudes
320 pages