Their trauma is the same, their sequelae are poles apart. Ten years after Maple Spring, Francis Grenier and Maxence L. Valade look back on the year that changed their lives.
It was a spring of casseroles, #manifencours and a youth promising to move forward, to move forward, never to back down. Loco Locass was singing Free us from the liberalsthe fight was future and the air carried a perfume of revolution tenacious enough to pierce the mists of tear gas.
For the majority of the demonstrators who pounded the pavement in 2012, the memories of the time evoke the euphoria of drawing outside the lines the contours of the society to come.
Others, however, have paid dearly for the fruits of this spring and still bear the scars of the repression that tried to bring the uprising back into line.
Francis Grenier and Maxence L. Valade are among them.
The injury
Ten years ago, they both lost the use of one eye, bruised by projectiles fired by the police to tame the demonstrators.
“It was the first time I had seen this kind of image, remembers Mr. Grenier. The explosions, the panic, the running crowd, the smoke around me… I experienced it a bit like a scene of war. »
For him, it is rather a long winter which, in 2012, succeeded spring.
The 22-year-old student had to sacrifice his artistic aspirations following his injury. Gifted in drawing, he tried in vain to pursue his career in the arts at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM). A waste of time: his damaged vision prevented him from following the group and he had to resolve to give up. He oriented his efforts towards literature, before the fatigue inflicted by reading pushed him to throw in the towel again.
“It was a pretty dark time,” says the now 32-year-old man. I felt like I was facing a wall. It was my own wounds that kept me from achieving my dreams. »
It is finally in communication that Francis Grenier obtained his diploma and built his profession. It has a flavor of conquest for someone who has gone through years of failure, discouragement and a suicide attempt to live it. He also insisted on posing in front of UQAM to The dutya way of displaying his triumph over the fatality that shattered his dreams ten years ago in the form of a police grenade.
“That’s pretty cute”
Maxence L. Valade, he refuses to confine himself to his injury, suffered on the sidelines of the liberal congress of Victoriaville. The media light that the anniversary decade of spring throws on him, he would have done well without it. “It happened to me involuntarily, explains the new thirty-year-old on the phone. I have somewhat, in spite of myself, become a mascot. »
Dark days, he says he too went through after 2012. Ten years later, however, he refuses to feel sorry for himself and recalls that others, like Pierre Coriolan, have never been able to get up after meeting police officers. “It’s kind of cute, in a way, what I went through. This is trash, but at least I didn’t die of it. »
The plastic bullet that smashed his head ten years ago never quenched his thirst for justice or his anger at power — quite the contrary. “We lost a certain form of innocence after 2012, explains this former sociology student. There are many people who have understood that, regardless of the party in power, it will only be a legitimization of the structures in place. »
Today, he worries that the legacy of the maple spring is being co-opted for partisan gain. “Everyone will try to tear off the shreds of 2012 to legitimize their current discourse,” laments the former sociology student, according to whom the history of the revolution is however the only one that belongs to the vanquished.
No excuses
Francis Grenier and Maxence L. Valade both obtained compensation for the loss of their eye. Two judges recognized the abuse committed by the police and obliged the authorities to compensate them.
However, they never received an apology from the state or from the police.
“I no longer distinguish between a police officer and an armed person,” underlines Francis Grenier. I went to the G7 and had a major panic attack. I was behind Le Concorde, next to the Plains of Abraham, and when I saw the Sûreté du Québec convoys, the agents, their number, I panicked. I felt tremendous stress and hyperventilated. I feel like I no longer have my freedom of expression. »
Maxence L. Valade, for his part, has lost none of his taste for combat. “Ideally, another uprising like 2012 would happen today,” he calls. The time of the strike was also a time of healing. There was something very caring about this collective moment. For me, it was really salutary, this time of healing, despite the handicap that I still carry today. »
Ten years later, the memory of maple spring seems distant. The resilience of the two wounded resounds, more deafening than a chorus of pans.