The epic of the forgotten. France 2 broadcasts, Tuesday, at 9:10 p.m., a 91-minute documentary called We, the workers. This saga traces the history of a social class which completely disappeared from the media in the 1980s. Today, few are able to estimate the number of workers in France as their image has been erased from collective memory. However, there are still more than 5 million of them and above all, they are at the origin of France’s global industrial power. Even today, it is the workers who keep the country running. But in the shadows.
The spotlight given by directors Fabien Béziat and Hugues Nancy is therefore a media event. After the success of We peasants and its 5.5 million viewers, the two filmmakers take up the popular thread of History to tell the evolution of the working world in France from the opening of the first textile factories at the beginning of the 19th century to the present day.
“We had to fight to wrest our rights”
“It is we, the workers who build and manufacture everything,” intones the commentary which puts itself in the shoes of the wretched of the earth, swallowed up by the industrial revolution. Spinning mill employees, underground miners, steelworkers, automobile workers… Their names are Christine, Pierre, Aimable and share the same, inexorable destiny: enduring difficult working conditions and hellish pace. Even today, there are two fatal work accidents per day in our country.
“We had to fight to win rights: weekly rest, Social Security, retirement rights, paid leave,” says the voice. Between testimonies and sometimes spectacular archive images of the world of work, the story unfolds a certain nostalgia tinged with compassion and sometimes poetry. In 1975, workers represented 40% of workers, the closure of blast furnaces, spinning mills and mines considerably reduced their number and transformed their task. What remains of this working class?
“All that remains is the word. And she’s going to go away soon.”
Asked by 20 minutes, Aimable Patin, a former miner for 27 years in Arenberg, in the North, participated in the film to freeze the memory of a world that has died out. “In around ten years, there will be no more minors in France,” he slips. Who will talk about us? Today, all that remains of the world of minors is speech. And she’s going to leave soon. »
At a time when reindustrialization is constantly being mentioned by political authorities, this documentary has the merit of tracing the broad outlines of what remains of excessive industrialization. The memory of permanent danger and a very strong collective culture. “Every time we went down into the mine, we were very afraid,” testifies Aimable Patin. But we didn’t want to show it, out of personal pride. »
The javelin transformed into darts
In the documentary, a passage evokes the daily life of miners after the Second World War. It’s about pigeon racing, this passion of miners for pigeons, a symbol of freedom and heaven, but also the hobby of darts. Specialists will recognize in the image, not the game of darts, but the javelin, a practice very popular in Pas-de-Calais, and not only among minors.