In 2012, Jallal Hami lost his life in Saint-Cyr during an exercise in “transmission of traditions”, in other words a “barking”. From this drama, his brother Rachid, director, made a film, “Pour la France”, released on February 8. He tells in “Special Envoy” the story of Jallal, of their journey to both. In this extract, he returns in particular to the court decision handed down eight years after the tragedy.
“Two soldiers arrive in the morning at 9 a.m., and there… no discussion, we know what happenedremembers Rachid Hami. They don’t even need to talk. We see them, we know. Well, we know that Jallal is dead. The question is ‘why’?”
Jallal Hami wanted”to serve France“, live “a life of adventure“, recalls his big brother. A graduate of Sciences-Po, this brilliant cadet dreamed of becoming “the first Algerian chief of staff of the French army“. At the age of 24, he died drowned in the icy water of a pond that the young recruits of the school of Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan had to swim across in the middle of the night – a “bahutage” (in slang saint- Cyrian) organized by second-year students.
“They haven’t planned security, they haven’t planned an ambulance, they haven’t planned anything at all. There’s a great, huge panic there.”
Rachid Hami, director of “For France”in “Special Envoy”
The passage of a first group of students turns to disaster. “They pull about thirty guys out of the water, who are drowning, who are banging on each other…” All ask to end the exercise, but “they decide to send them back to the water. Jallal is in this second group…”
Upon the announcement of his death,the sky fell on us“, says their mother, Hadjira. “remained standing“despite the pain, she stood”beaten for the cemetery“. The army planned to bury Jallal in the Muslim square of the Bobigny cemetery. A funeral had to be snatched from him at Père-Lachaise, “a symbol in itself” according to Rachid Hami.
“When you die in Saint-Cyr through the fault of your comrades and they are aware of having played with your life, what do we do?”
Rachid Hamiin “Special Envoy”
A manslaughter investigation has been opened. The trial will be held at the Rennes criminal court eight long years later. The sentences pronounced against three of the seven defendants are light: from twelve to six months in prison, suspended. But “the most violent thing“for Rachid Hami, it is that they will not be registered in bulletin n°2 of their criminal record.”When a guy sells a bar of weedhe reacts, he takes a month in prison. He has a sentence on his criminal record. For five years, he drags this stigma, to find a job, to reintegrate… And they, their convictions, they disappeared the very moment they were pronounced…”
“There is extreme brutality [à filmer la mort de Jallal], because the person will die again, you will replay the tragedy, but he will not die alone. His brother will hold his hand.”
Arnaud Desplechin, directorin “Special Envoy”
However, Rachid Hami does not sign “not a film against the army, not a pamphlet, not a victim lament“, he insists. His friend Arnaud Desplechin says that he often came to see him “to talk about how he was going to film Jallal’s death“without being pornographic, in the sense of indecent: “‘My brother drowned, alone.’
Extract from “For my brother”, to see in “Special Envoy” on February 9, 2023.
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