State matter
Alors que le prefet de police soutient qu'il a été touché par un projectile envoyé par un casheur, des vidéos circulant sur les réseaux accusent les forces de l'ordre.
While the police prefect claims he was hit by an object thrown by a rioter, videos circulating on social media accuse the security forces.
This sentence lies at the heart of the aesthetic and ethical tension of La ManifHe confronts two competing regimes of truth: the institutional and the mediated. On the one hand, there is the official version of power—the voice of the state, represented by the police prefect, who blames a "casseur," a figure from the repertoire of urban chaos. On the other hand, there is the visual counter-power of digital images, which offer an alternative reading via social networks: the guilt of the police. This opposition points to central questions of the novel: Who administers justice? To whom does the truth belong? And what happens when institutional narratives are challenged by counter-narratives from civil society? Alard not only exposes the fragility of state discourse but also emphasizes the precarious role of image and evidence. The videos are indeed an indictment, but they do not guarantee justice. Rather, they exacerbate the ambivalence: visibility is not the same as truth, and publicity is not the same as justice. This statement thus opens up a field of tension in which... La Manif Positioned in literary terms: between representation and reality, between state order and civic doubt. In this liminal space, the novel's narrative poetics unfolds – as a search for truth, justice, and moral responsibility.
Nelly Alard's novel La manif (Gallimard, 2025), inspired by real events, illuminates the devastating impact of state violence and institutional injustice on a family, critiquing the lack of transparency and accountability within the French state apparatus, particularly the police and the justice system, by elevating a personal tragedy to a matter of national importance. Furthermore, the narrative explores the multifaceted psychological and emotional burdens suffered by the victims and their families, leading to profound disillusionment, a loss of trust, and a re-evaluation of familial relationships. Amidst media distortion, official cover-ups, and familial powerlessness, the text develops a complex aesthetic and narrative process that does not assert justice but seeks, bears witness to, and demands it.
The novel opens on May 26, 2016, when Agnès and Gilles learn that their 28-year-old son, Romain, is in a coma and in danger after an "incident" on the sidelines of a demonstration against the labor law. While the police chief claims Romain was hit by a projectile fired by a "troublemaker," videos circulating online accuse the police. This discrepancy plunges the family—Romain, his sisters Clotilde and Judith, his girlfriend Nastassja, his parents Agnès and Gilles, and his grandmother Françoise—into shock and forces them to question the official narrative. A protracted struggle for the truth ensues, leading the family through hospital corridors, conflicting media reports, and encounters with high-ranking government officials. When Romain miraculously awakens from his coma, he is suffering significant physical and psychological consequences. The ensuing legal battle is marked by delays, cover-ups, and ultimately the final discontinuation of the proceedings, causing deep bitterness and resignation within the family.
The multi-perspective narrative style allows for a deep insight into the subjective experience of trauma and the different coping strategies of the characters. Here is an example of how multi-perspective narration is implemented in the book:
Agnès and Gilles (Romain's parents)
Their perspective is marked by initial shock and disbelief when they learn that their son has been injured at a demonstration—something they cannot imagine happening to Romain. They experience the journey to Paris filled with fear, conflicting information, and the disconcerting behavior of the hospital staff and officials. Gilles is particularly angry and suspects a conspiracy from the outset, while Agnès often oscillates between hope and despair.
Clotilde (Romain's older sister)
As a doctor, she is able to professionally assess Romain's medical condition, which takes her fear and worry to another level. She is the one who coordinates the family's efforts and communicates with the hospital staff. Her perspective also reveals her frustration with the bureaucracy and the indifference she perceives. She is pragmatic and wants to get to the bottom of things, which later leads her to go to the media.
Judith (Romain's younger sister)
Judith, the most emotional of the siblings, immediately bursts into tears. She is initially skeptical about Romain's role in the demonstration, as she knows him to be quick-tempered. Her perspective changes drastically when she sees the videos from Russian television channels, which show the actual circumstances of Romain's injury and contradict the official version. She is disillusioned with the justice system and the way the media is handling the story.
Françoise (Romain's grandmother)
She has a special, almost mystical connection to Romain. Her perspective is marked by regret, as she wishes she had warned Romain against going to the demonstration. She is also deeply disappointed by politics and the direction society is taking.
Romain (the victim himself)
His perspective is initially shaped by coma, confusion, and delirium, in which he feels trapped and tortured. After waking up and recovering, he experiences the shockwaves of the events and the injustice of the legal system firsthand. His initial naive hope for justice gives way to profound disillusionment.
Nastassja (Romain's girlfriend)
She experiences the news of Romain's injury in Iceland and her panicked return journey. Her perspective reveals the emotional distress and physical fear she feels, particularly regarding Romain's head injury and his changed personality.
Sandro (Clotilde's partner)
As a medical expert, he supports Clotilde with his specialist knowledge and is appalled by the injustices in the system. He is the one who translates the most complicated medical details for Agnès and Gilles.
These different perspectives complement each other and show how a single traumatic event affects an entire family in diverse ways, and how difficult it is to find the "truth" and achieve justice within a complex system. The multi-perspective narrative allows the author to comprehensively illuminate the emotional, psychological, medical, and legal dimensions of the story.
Alard's narrative style is decentralized, polyphonic, and characterized by an intimate closeness to the characters. It is a poetics of deceleration and psychological depth, contrasting the hardening of legal and political discourse with the softness of subjectivity. The chapters jump between family members, creating a fragmented yet coherent narrative of familial pain. The novel shows how political injustice takes root in private biographies, how the victim's (Romain's) body becomes a silent archive of societal upheaval. The text's ethical and aesthetic commitment lies in this polyphony: it does not simply side with a condemnation, but rather—through meticulous research, richly detailed medical and legal scenes, and psychologically credible inner worlds—creates a literary process of truth production. La Manif It is not a treatise, but a process: literature as a hearing, as an investigation, as a form of process that treats justice as an open, yet-to-be-achieved ideal.
The novel itself thus becomes an act of civil resistance—not through volume, but through tenacity, empathy, and structure. Alard succeeds in creating a committed literature that transcends the pamphlet: a narrative form of justice that intervenes where the legal system itself fails. The author shifts between different registers of language. From the raw, emotional language of the family in moments of shock and anger, through the precise but often cold medical and legal jargon, to the cynical and manipulative language of official bodies. This shifting intensifies the family's alienation and sense of powerlessness in the face of the system.
Cover-up and self-protection
The involuntary confrontation with state violence and the harrowing search for the truth
The novel plunges the family from their everyday life into a nightmare marked from the outset by the discrepancy between official narrative and personal experience. News of Romain's condition reaches Agnès and Gilles in Cap Ferret, far removed from the Parisian protests. Clotilde, the first to hear the news, is surprised by her brother's participation in a demonstration: "a manifestation—but Romain never manifested his life—what did he do in a manifestation?" This disbelief is shared by the entire family, as Romain is not known as a political activist, but rather as someone who "always preferred to observe, to remain on the sidelines."
The official version of events, according to the police prefect, that Romain was hit by a "projectile thrown by a troublemaker," is quickly refuted (as mentioned in the introduction) by videos circulating on social media. Gilles is furious at the blatant lie: "But when they're shoved down their throats, when they dare to wander about with stories of pétanque balls and street furniture, there was something to drive them mad." The family is thus forced into a battle for the truth, which from the outset is declared a "state affair," underscoring the political dimension of their personal suffering. The fact that Romain's answering machine message from the day of the incident contains only a "long wail" further intensifies the uncertainty and terror for the family.
The trauma and its multifaceted psychological effects on the family
The event and the ensuing uncertainty are taking a toll on the entire family. Agnès experiences a state of "intranquillité," a feeling that "anything could happen, at any moment? Even the worst. Especially the worst." This feeling is a direct consequence of May 26, 2016, and the collapse of their established order. Agnès suffers particularly from the lack of physical affection within her family, while she admires Sandro, her daughter's partner, for his "warm, tactile" nature.
Clotilde, the doctor, is used to delivering bad news, but she struggles to maintain her professionalism within her family. She feels too "cold" towards her mother, as she assumes the role of the "organized, rational woman" within the family. Her professional objectivity is tested, however, when she encounters doctors like Dr. Troadec at the hospital, who seems to regard Romain as a "crook" or "ruffian." Clotilde is stunned by the lack of empathy and the inappropriate language of Professor F., who says of Romain's condition: "Ah, ça on peut dire qu'il a bien morflé, son hémisphère gauche, il a sacrément morflé."
Romain's awakening is initially a shock for the family. Instead of seeing her son, Agnès is confronted by a "wild beast" who is strapped to his bed with tubes and restraints, muttering incomprehensible insults, including the repeated phrase: "Not a CRS, a demonstrator." Judith doesn't recognize her brother and describes his gaze as that of a "madman." This scene illustrates Romain's extreme trauma and the associated psychological changes. He believes he has been kidnapped or is in a psychiatric hospital. The lack of memory of the incident and the fact that his family is withholding the truth from him intensify his anguish. After watching the video of the incident, he remembers everything, including the words the police officers said to him in the ambulance: "You'll tell me it's not a CRS, but a demonstrator who did this to you," which supports Gilles and Sandro's conspiracy theory.
The institutional cover-up and the disappointment with the justice system
The legal proceedings turn out to be a grueling battle against a system that seems designed for cover-up and self-protection. The family quickly realizes that "the Romain D. affair has become a matter of state." The Minister of the Interior and the Chief of Police initially appear concerned, but their statements remain vague and contradictory. The Chief of Police insists that Romain was hit by a projectile from a "casseur" (a type of gunman). Gilles and Clotilde confront the Minister with the inconsistencies, with Gilles bluntly demanding the truth: "Whether you explain to us that this is a matter of state and that we must cover it up, and explain to us why, then you tell us the truth. Which option do you want to choose? This question is important." The family hopes for the minister's promise to bring "the whole truth" to light.
The legal investigation, however, proceeded slowly. The IGPN report, which Romain received through his lawyer, found no traces of pyrotechnics on Romain's jacket but detected traces of cocaine—a finding that surprised Romain, as he had never used drugs, and which "shows how the investigation was biased." This report exonerated the police officer of any guilt and rejected any administrative sanctions. The lawyer criticized the inconsistencies in the final investigation report, which "did not shy away from contradictions," and complained that the necessity and proportionality of the use of force had not been sufficiently examined. The final decision to dismiss the case ("non-lieu") was perceived as "lunair" and "ahurissant," as it accepted the police officer's statements about alleged endangerment, despite video evidence contradicting this. The Cour de cassation's ruling in October 2023, upholding the dismissal of the case, finally buried the matter. From that moment on, Romain felt hated not only by the policeman, but by the state and society as a whole: “c'était l'État lui-même, la société tout entière qui ne l'aimait pas.”
The loss of illusions and the desperate search for meaning
The repeated setbacks in his fight for justice lead to deep resignation for Romain and his family. While Romain initially believes in the possibility of justice and even sees himself as a "miracle worker" or someone with a "Christian destiny" to make sense of the incident, this illusion gradually crumbles. The "non-lieu" (dismissal of the case) means for him that he has no right to complain. The irony is that the very process that was supposed to bring him justice becomes yet another trauma. The publication of the Ministry of the Interior's defense memorandum, which assigns Romain partial blame for his injuries and claims he had "perfect awareness of the danger," is the final blow for him.
Romain's girlfriend Nastassja, who accompanies him on his ordeal, finds the situation overwhelming and eventually breaks up with him, feeling that Romain "thought of nothing but that [i.e., his trauma and his role as a 'miracle healer'], they talked about nothing else." She, too, loses her illusions about justice and the meaning of the struggle. The family witnesses Romain's fate, initially considered a "state affair," degenerate in media coverage into a "tiny, banal incident" and be overshadowed by new catastrophes such as Covid, the war in Ukraine, and the attacks in Nice. Agnès and Gilles struggle with the lack of media attention and the feeling that they haven't done enough. Despite everything, Agnès tries to carry on living life in the face of constant fear. Romain begins to participate in protests, not out of provocation, but out of a need to exercise his right to free speech and to "see, feel, and smell" the revolt. His goal is no longer revenge, but the realization that "justice, if not exercised, is never far from dictatorship."
Trust in institutions
The first reaction fut d'incompréhension: au lieu des images d'affrontements qu'elle s'était prepared à voir, la vidéo montrait une scène au premier abord banale, quotidienne, des passants marchant sur un trottoir tandis que des voitures roulaient tranquillement sur une avenue menant au Périphérique, don't on apercevait au loin the panneau d'accès. […] Noam arrêta la vidéo. — Voilà, maintenant tu sais ce qui s'est passé. Romain is pris a grenade jetée par a flic. […] Que le préfet veuille venir SE RÉJOUIR de son état de santé alors même qu'il était encore en réanimation avec son trou dans la tête, uniquement parce qu'il devait penser comme tout le monde que Romain allait mourir et qu'il avait peur dans ce The fusible servicing device, which has the same power source as a conserver, is located at the point where you can hear the sound of the device so that the orders are sent to the cranium, Romain trouva que c'était pousser un peu loin le bouchon.
The initial reaction was incomprehension: Instead of the images of clashes she had prepared for, the video showed what appeared at first glance to be a banal, everyday scene: Pedestrians strolled along a sidewalk, while cars drove calmly along an avenue leading to the ring road, whose entrance sign was visible in the distance. […] Noam stopped the video. — So, now you know what happened. Romain was hit by a grenade thrown by a police officer. […] The fact that the prefect wanted to come and rejoice over his health, even though he was still in intensive care with a hole in his head, just because he, like everyone else, probably thought Romain was going to die and was afraid of being made a scapegoat, that he was so happy to be allowed to keep his job, that he wanted to come to his bedside to rejoice that an officer under his command had smashed his skull in—Romaine thought that was going a bit too far.
This passage demonstrates the crucial role of video evidence and the shocking discrepancy between the official narrative and reality. Judith's initial "incompetence" when viewing the video footage of Romain's injury reinforces the scene's authenticity. The depiction of a "banal, everyday" scene, distinct from the expected "images of clashes," underscores that Romain was not an active demonstrator but an uninvolved observer, further emphasizing the brutality of the police violence. Noam's matter-of-fact revelation ("Romain was hit by a grenade thrown by a cop") delivers a gut punch and is the catalyst for the family's awakening from their initial disbelief and naiveté. Later, when Romain himself sees the videos and reads the news reports, he understands the authorities' cynical intent: the prefect is pleased with his recovery not out of concern, but to secure his own position and cover up the affair. The capitalized words "SE RÉJOUIR" underscore the perceived absurdity and sarcasm. This contrast between the visible truth and the official lies—which stop even at a severely injured victim—fuels the family's fight for justice. It is an exposure of the power structures that are prepared to distort reality to protect themselves.
La manif It is more than just a fictionalized account of a real case of police brutality; it is a profoundly human and socially critical work that masterfully captures the poetics of witnessing and the loss of illusions. The novel's strength lies in its polyphonic narrative structure: by constantly shifting the perspectives of the various family members—Agnès, Gilles, Clotilde, Judith, Françoise, Nastassja, and finally Romain himself—the reader gains a comprehensive understanding of the trauma and its far-reaching consequences. This polyphony not only emphasizes the subjectivity of perception but also amplifies the emotional impact by depicting in detail the different coping mechanisms—from anger and resignation to renewed engagement.
The novel, based on real events, explores how a society that considers itself a state governed by the rule of law deals with violence perpetrated by its own institutions, and to what extent the "fait divers" of an individual becomes a symptom of a broader societal dysfunction. The "intranquillité" that Agnès experiences is metaphorical for the collective feeling of an uncertain time. In its poetics, the novel not only assesses the concrete injustice in the case of Romain D., but also questions the foundations of trust in state institutions and makes a powerful appeal for the importance of truth and accountability for the functioning of a democracy.
The novel's poetics are also characterized by its unflinching realism, which doesn't shy away from exposing the bureaucratic and human failings of the institutions. The detailed descriptions of the hospital environment, the legal procedures, and the dynamics of the media create an authentic and oppressive atmosphere. The discrepancy between official terminology (e.g., "incident" instead of "attack") and the experienced brutality is highlighted through precise dialogue and internal monologues that make the family's frustration and sense of powerlessness palpable.
In one of the last scenes of La Manif Romain, awakened from his coma, and his mother Agnès sit on a bench in the Jardin du Luxembourg. It is quiet. Spring has begun. Birds are singing. Romain hardly speaks—his speech is still fragile, his memories fragmentary. And yet he is there, against all odds. A scar on his temple. No court case has brought justice, no verdict has been delivered. But they are there, in this shared moment, in the heart of the city, which is simultaneously the stage for injustice and for life. This scene exemplifies Alard's literary poetics: La Manif The novel rejects the dramatic finale, the definitive resolution, "justice" in the classical sense. Instead, it allows a quiet, open form of justice to emerge—one that lies in endurance, in togetherness, and in continuing to live. It is a right not guaranteed by institutions, but through narrative care, through storytelling, remembering, and preserving. Alard's novel does not end with a legal conclusion, but with an existential gesture: persistence despite everything. In doing so, it articulates La Manif a literature that does not replace the law, but challenges it – as the ethical memory of society, as a place where the rights of people assert themselves against the silence of power.
This article is written in German and can be found at https://rentree.de. Automatic translations into English and French are available. English, French.
