In March 1979, the workers of Longwy found a voice.
Born free in the fights against the dismantling of the steel industry in Lorraine, under the aegis of the CGT, Radio Lorraine Coeur d'Acier, has set a fundamental milestone in the history of social struggles and pirate radio stations.
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A radio station for living, working and making decisions in Lorraine
»Told by Tristan Thil (screenplay) and Vincent Bailly (drawings). Through the eyes of a working-class family, against the backdrop of the Davignon plan and its 22,000 job cuts to save the steel industry, the reader plunges behind the scenes of a radio station that has been free to speak for two years. We meet Camille, the 18-year-old protagonist, actively participating in the life of the station and cherishing the dream of moving away from the factory. His father, Eugène, steelmaker and CGT delegate, initially hostile to the principle of openness of the radio, for whom there is only virtue in free debate, offering the floor to everyone, including the right and to the bosses. Despite his reluctance, the worker will also let himself embark on this collective adventure. Maria, the mother, takes advantage, for her part,of this unexpected opportunity to express oneself and to emancipate oneself from the patriarchy.
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Convergence of dramas
The reader is touched by Ishmael's condition as an immigrant who will also have the right to his privileged moment to express his apprehensions in the face of the looming economic crisis.
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Soon you will see, the crisis and unemployment will be our fault
“, He predicts. The tragedies are multiple but all converge on the rebellious waves of Lorraine Heart of Steel, animated by the journalists Jacques Dupont and Marcel Trillat, who will pay the expenses of their engagement and whose authors largely salute the courage. Relayed by the luminous and watercolor line of Vincent Bailly, the story, both edifying and moving, recalls the salutary enthusiasm of the collective adventure in the face of adversity. When the voice of a whole population is freed, the yoke of a laborious life as well as the stale smoke of the factory become immediately less unbreathable.
“In 1979, Tristan Thil was not born and Vincent Bailly was twelve years old, far from Longwy. And here they are grappling with one of the very last major struggles of the working class. Chapeau! ”,
Greeted the Lorraine author Baru in his afterword drawn from the album.
Baru, crowned Grand Prix at Angoulême in 2010, knows what he is talking about: for decades, he has made working-class culture the substance of his work.
Tristan and Vincent, by delivering this striking testimony to the liberation of the airwaves, can be proud of being worthy heirs.
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This plate marks the beginning of the adventure of the free radio Lorraine Cœur d'Acier.
Futuropolis
“This board is located at the very beginning of the Lorraine Cœur d'Acier adventure. This is the moment when the CGT decided to set up a pirate radio at a time when the airwaves were not yet released. This will be done later with Mitterrand. The CGT has technical means that exceed most pirate radio stations of the time. It will install a good antenna on the steeple of Longwy-Haut, on Place Darche, which will irrigate the region as far as Strasbourg. The power in place, not supporting the idea, will not stop blurring this signal. This first plate shows the start with journalists Marcel Trillat and Jacques Dupont.
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I started the sequence with two silent boxes with the technicians and then started a traveling shot going from an exterior view of the town hall where I placed the reader behind the crowd. It is a question of showing the great attendance for this launch, as it will be the case during the 17 months of life of the station. We then enter the interior of the building with the “aquarium” housing the radio and discover the two journalists, before a close-up on Marcel Trillat. The rather emblematic panoramic hut is a view of exit B of the Senelle plant. We can see the clearing clouds, with a glowing appearance, which dominated the city and caused persistent coughs among the workers. This reflects the omnipresence of thefactory around which the whole life of the population revolved as well as the dramatic dimension of the Davignon plan, which liquidated the steel industry in Lorraine while everyone lived from this industry.
"A drawing that is too constructed is not always a drawing that tells"
Vincent Bailly
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My staging also tends to show the excitement and optimism that surrounded the launch of the station.
For the working class, speaking at the microphone of journalists is a real novelty.
For them, this speech will be able to change things.
It was joyful.
People liked this very strong experience.
I wanted to highlight the enthusiasm generated by this wind of freedom and this humanism.
The workers obviously wanted things to turn out differently.
They are ambivalent in their relationship to the factory;
life is hard but they like their group cohesion.
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I worked in color directly, using acrylics with felt and brush inking. I first set up the shadows and contrasts with a black and gray wash before adding the ambient tones. I did not stay on the imagination of gray and dull industrial cities. I wanted something bright, to defend this time when a lot of things happened: the yellows of the forge and the red of the smoke which is also the color of the struggle. I favored a removed line, at the limit of the sketch to serve the story. A drawing that is too constructed is not always a drawing that tells. A loan from Baru who built me graphically, there is a real lineage.It is complicated to talk about working-class Lorraine without encroaching on its flowerbeds. ”
Lorraine, Cœur d'Acier, History of a pirate radio station, free and popular (1979-1981),
Vincent Bailly and Tristan Thuil, Futuropolis, 17 euros.
