The movie is called Disappearance ? It is signed Jean-Pierre Pozzi and it looks back on the slow drift of the Socialist Party since the victory of François Mitterrand with, in the background, a question: how did it get there?
But it is not yet another choral documentary with alternating sequences and testimonies. We follow the comic book author Mathieu Sapin, who as Tintin reporter, goes to meet men and women from the shadows of the PS to tell the story from the inside.
Three of the four witnesses are communicators: Laure Adler, Philippe Moreau-Chevrolet and Gérard Colé. The documentary therefore chose the prism of political communication. And it is Julien Dray, who presents himself as the “black baron” of the PS, an allusion to the Canal+ series, who is behind this documentary.
Gaspard Gantzer: Yes, we see it at the very end of the film, it is written “on an original idea by Julien Dray”. He is a man who knows the history of the left by heart, he notably founded SOS Racisme with Harlem Désir, he was a deputy of the PS and he accompanied its development in the 80s, 90s and even in the 2000s. And Julien Dray may have suffered a little from not being recognized at his fair value. He who calls himself and who is nicknamed “black baron”, he who knows so well the screenwriter of the television series of the same name, Eric Benzekri, who was one of his collaborators, perhaps wanted to take up the light of that way.
In the middle of the election campaign, can this film have an impact on the left?
What we see in this film is a left at the height of its glory in the 80s, which is in tune with the movements of society, in the great popular mobilizations, in symbolic places in the capital. But we also see a divorce gradually settling between the people of the left and its elites, at certain times in history, and that can come back as a boomerang for the candidates of the left during this presidential election.
One of the key sequences of the documentary shows François Hollande in front of the television, at the Elysée, at the time of the announcement of the victory of Emmanuel Macron in 2017. Has François Hollande seen the documentary, and if so that has he thought of it?
We didn’t see it together, he saw it a few days before me, but I imagine that he must not have loved the end of the documentary which puts his five-year term on hold a little without really paying homage to the points positives of his power.
What is certain is that this did not lead him to say to himself that he should retire from political life because perhaps he also wants to show that he is capable of continuing to weigh in on the political debate.
Personally, I don’t know if he will announce his candidacy in a few days, nor what he will say when he takes the floor as he suggested. What is certain is that he will want to be a key player in this campaign, to speak out and weigh in on the debate by speaking out very regularly.