Lorraine Connection Read Online Free PDF Page B

the factory access road. It’s now less than twenty metres away, nosing its way forward, its huge bonnet looming above their heads. The men close their eyes, speechless. We’re not afraid … Less than five metres, don’t think about bodies being run over, the wheel that crushes, don’t think. United. A solid wall , stand firm. And don’t fall Less than two metres. An order comes from the back, passed forward from row to row: ‘When you hear shouts of “Fire” scatter to the sides as fast as possible!’ The bumpers touch the men in the front line, and the lorry continues to inch forward. Who can hold back ten tonnes?
    A prolonged shout, coming from six voices in chorus: ‘Fire!’ The human chains break apart: ‘Get the driver, quick!’ Six men armed with lengths of wood furiously push forward a heap of burning pallets, scraping the ground and sending out a shower of sparks. They slide them towards the bonnet of the lorry now level with the gate.
    ‘Let’s burn the bastards in their cabs!’ yells Nourredine, pouring with sweat, his hands burned, completely carried away.
    Panic aboard the first lorry. The driver throws it into reverse, retreats a few metres, too fast, the trailer careers off the road, its wheels sink into the soft earth, it jackknifes. Armed with baseball bats, the other two men jump down from the cab to protect the lorry. Hafed and a dozen or so workers step in.
    ‘Stop now, that’s enough. We stay on the factory premises, on our own ground. We don’t set fire to the lorry. We’ve won. They’re leaving. We let them go.’
    Behind their window, the security guards contemplate the scene without moving a muscle.
    The mass of workers are clustered behind the blazing pallets. The wood is well-ventilated and dry, it gives off a lovely clear bright flame. They watch the heavy articulated lorries attempting to manoeuvre their way out. Laughter and jeers: ‘Watch out, you’ll burn out your engine!’ The drivers are none too adroit and a few clods of earth, a few stones, are hurled at the windscreens. It’s a way of letting off steam, nothing really nasty. Nourredine has torn off his grey overalls and thrown them into the fire. Then the lorries leave in slow convoy, the same way they came. As they disappear into the distance, hazy through the flames, silence falls and lasts for a few minutes after they vanish in the direction of Luxembourg. Each person pictures a section of bonnet, the edge of a bumper, the tip of a wing, a wheel, each person relives the feeling of serried bodies, battling fear, the heat of the fire, and the overwhelming joy at the routing of the juggernaut, savouring the shared feeling that together we are strong, the world is ours. Fistsraised in the direction of the blind windows of the executives’ offices.
    If we hadn’t been warned, the lorries would have got in easily, thinks Nourredine, dazed and elated.
    Then Hafed grabs a chair from inside the porter’s lodge and clambers on to it.
    ‘Since they’ve declared war on us, we must get organised and fight back.’
     
    Early on this sunny afternoon the news of the strike, the offensive action and the victory over the bosses has spread throughout the neighbourhood. The factory is like a magnet and people have come from all over – the unemployed, the retired, on foot, by bicycle and car, to catch up on the news, see how the youngsters are coping, relive their own memories. When all the surrounding valleys were involved in the steel industry, when the word ‘strike’ meant something, when they attacked police stations with bulldozers, when they went on a mass march on Paris, when intentions were far from peaceful … Memories that reduce what has just happened at Daewoo to a mere blip. People cluster outside the gates, on the central reservation all the way to the roundabout. Amrouche comes out to greet a few old acquaintances. Workers from the night shift chat to the veterans before going inside the factory. There are