On the poster for the film “Douce France”, Jennyfer clings, standing, to a tractor driven by Sami, her former classmate. Schooled in first ES at Jean-Rostand high school in Villepinte (Seine-Saint-Denis) at the time of filming, which took place during the 2017-2018 school year, the teenager knew nothing about the peasant world. Four years later, she stayed in contact with Florent, a farmer she met on that occasion. “We give each other news,” says Jennyfer, 20 years old today.
This Saturday evening at the Jacques-Tati cinema in Tremblay-en-France, the young woman will attend a screening of the documentary of which she is one of the three protagonists. Released in theaters last June, “Douce France” tells the story of the investigation carried out by three high school students around the EuropaCity project, this ultimately aborted mega-complex of leisure and shopping which was to rise on agricultural land in the Triangle de Gonesse (Val-d ‘Oise), between Roissy and Le Bourget airports.
Geoffrey Couanon, the director, scoured the classrooms of schools in Seine-Saint-Denis to select the students he would follow for his documentary. “Those from Villepinte stood out for their desire to take part in the project, to discover what the construction of EuropaCity involved, he justified last year, during a preview screening of the film on Internet. They were also in first, at an age when you start to wonder about your future, about what you want to do later. A pivotal period. »
Jennyfer recognizes it: she had never heard of this project then, even though it was located a few kilometers from her town, along the A1. “Initially, I liked the idea,” says the young woman. At the time, I liked to walk around the malls. Over the course of the film, the high school students of Jean-Rostand form an enlightened opinion through interviews conducted with various interlocutors.
” This is only a postponement. These lands are so well placed…”
Like a journalist, they question the “pro”, such as property developers, the mayor of Gonesse Jean-Pierre Blazy (PS) or certain traders in the sector, and question the “anti”, in particular the farmers who cultivated the lands in question. On one side or the other, “the arguments were legitimate, believes Jennyfer. The defenders of the project assured that it would create jobs, but for the inhabitants of 93? I’m not sure. »
Over the months and meetings, in an Amap (association for the maintenance of peasant agriculture) or at the third place of the Grands Voisins in Paris, the teenager no longer sees the point of “doing something so big”. “What EuropaCity offered already existed elsewhere,” she points out. And when we learned about the agricultural value of this land, it made us think. »
The abandonment of the project in 2019 is not an end in itself, believes Jennyfer. “With all the people against it, I was sure it wouldn’t happen,” she said. But that’s only a postponement. These lands are so well placed…”
If she did not create a militant fiber in her, the “Douce France” adventure pushed her to wonder about her future. In first, the teenager was destined to work in the banking sector, like her mother. “All the encounters I’ve had, the new things I’ve seen, it made me change my mind,” says Jennyfer. She now works in civic service at the local mission, in the world of integration that she “likes”. She also changed her dress habits. It now favors thrift stores and clearance stores… over shopping centres.
Screening this Saturday, September 25 at 8 p.m. at the Jacques-Tati cinema, at 29 bis, avenue du Général-de-Gaulle in Tremblay-en-France. Screening in the presence of a teacher and three former students of the Jean-Rostand high school who took part in the film.
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