or gitan (gypsy), since the former relates in their eyes to a specific community and the latter has pejorative connotations. While the translation of the book uses US English, the British English writing of the term “Traveller” has been preferred to differentiate it from the word “traveler,” which refers to a person who is traveling. The double “l” signifies the identity of a group.
Preamble
This is a book of a singular kind. It is not the result of a traditional sociological investigation. It is a counter-investigation. I explain how it arose in the prologue. It seeks to shed light on the death of a man through the accounts of those who killed him and those who were more or less immediate witnesses to the scene. It also attempts to analyze the judicial handling of the case up until it was dismissed, those who fired the fatal shots being exculpated on grounds of legitimate self-defense. Inset between these two elements is a description of the reactions of the deceased man’s family and a reconstruction of the victim’s life story. I present the accounts of the protagonists as faithfully as possible through the use of a subjective, third-person narrative. By contrast, I examine the judicial process through a critical lens, in order to show how choices were made early on between irreconcilable versions of the story, resulting in problematic decisions. On the basis of a re-examination of the individual accounts and the case file, I then propose a different version of the facts that makes it possible to integrate the contradictions, divergences and discrepancies that remain in the judges’ interpretation. The aim is thus to create, around this tragic case, an experimental form of writing that honors the diverse viewpoints, as evoked in the epigraph from Rumi, while at the same time ultimately acknowledging my own perspective, at the end of an inquiry inspired by the quotation from Nietzsche. The unusual approach I have adopted raises two questions.
First, can I be said to take sides? This is a charge readily leveled against sociologists and anthropologists, who are often suspected of taking the part of the dominated. The observation is not entirely without foundation, and there is, moreover, no such thing as total impartiality. But here the opposite argument is called for. Once the magistrates have fully accepted one version of the events and rejected the other, the simple fact of giving equal weight to each, as I do here, and thus presenting them as both equally credible, tends to be seen as a failure of impartiality, whereas in fact it testifies to an effort to restore it. In this respect I show, in the sections focusing on the conditions of production of truth and lies in legal cases, that this case is far from an anomaly. It is not the exception, but the rule. It reveals not a dysfunctional justice system but its normal functioning, which needs to be analyzed as such if we are to understand the logics that prevail in the handling of such cases.
Second, is this work still one of social science? Admittedly, it does not follow the traditional forms of the discipline. Subjective recounting of the facts belongs to literature, the conduct of the inquiry is reminiscent of a particular kind of journalism, and the reconstruction of the investigation without doubt echoes the form of the criminal investigation process. These comparisons are reasonable, in my view, and in no way discreditable. But I contend that I maintain certain fundamental principles of the social sciences: empirical research based on a field study supplemented by examination of documents; equal attention accorded to the words of all those involved; a commitment to subject all available evidence to critical examination; the desire to go beyond the individual case and reveal the generality of social processes; and, indeed, the acknowledgment of the presence of the researcher, whom I have chosen to present from the outset as one protagonist among others.
Although the criminal investigation is long since over, the dismissal of the case was confirmed on appeal, and the petition to the Court of Cassation was judged inadmissible, it is probable that the case will be referred to the European Court of Human Rights. The way I have written it, presenting an honest reconstruction of the points of view of the main protagonists and a rigorous analysis of all the evidence in the investigation case file, and eventually putting forward an account of the events that differs from that of the justice system, takes this possibility into account.
Prologue
It appeared to me that the examining magistrate had not deciphered the problem at the root of this case, and I thought it might be of interest if I contributed here the information resulting from my own deciphering of it.
Fernando Pessoa, Il Caso Vargas
One morning, the sociologist receives an email from a collective that has come together to seek justice following the death of a Traveller. He has never heard of the case. He does not know the three persons who sign the email, all women. They give a succinct account of the tragic death of a thirty-seven-year-old man, the brother of one of them. He was killed by officers from the GIGN, Groupe d’intervention de la gendarmerie nationale, a special unit of the gendarmerie dedicated to terrorist attacks and hostage situations, who had come to arrest him as he was deemed to have absconded because he had not returned to prison following home leave. The three women tell the sociologist that they have read some of his books, and they would like to invite him to participate in a panel discussion focused on ending state violence, as their press release puts it. Moved by the man’s story, sympathetic to the collective’s campaign, and baffled by the implausibility of the official version of the events – all factors that echo other cases in which he has taken an interest – the sociologist nevertheless replies that, unfortunately, as he is not in France, he must decline their invitation. A few moments later, however, he follows up with a postscript proposing to write a short text that they could read at the event if they wish. They accept with enthusiasm. He therefore sends them a few pages in which he reflects on the machinery of law enforcement, penal structures and the prison system in France, where recent developments have led to tragedies such as the one in which this man died. Indeed, this tragic event sits at the intersection of ethnographic research he has been conducting for some fifteen years on the police, courts and prisons. The deceased man’s sister writes a brief message to say that she was touched when she read the text, as since her brother’s death she has been feeling a powerful need to articulate these things but knows that, when spoken by Travellers, they go unheard. She adds that she shared the text with her father, who himself experienced prison from the age of thirteen: after listening attentively he told her that he approved of what it said. The short address is therefore included in the program for the event. A slightly amended version is published a few weeks later on the first anniversary of the tragedy, as an opinion column in a national daily newspaper.
Over the following months, the sociologist continues to receive the collective’s regular press releases. He is thus kept informed about the judicial process, the hopes raised when those who fired the shots are placed under investigation and then dashed when the case is dismissed. He learns also of the marches in memory of the victim and in support of his family, held in the nearby administrative town where the case is to be decided as well as in other places where similar tragedies have taken place. After several email exchanges, he eventually goes to meet with the Traveller’s sister and other members of his family, including his parents, in their village. Spending the day with them, he takes note of the wound that remains open, the anger at a justice system that did not listen to them, the grieving that cannot begin until their words have been heard. Thus is germinated the idea for a book that would respect their version of the tragedy they have lived, and are still living through. The proposal is still unformed, and the support not guaranteed, as he explains to them. But they accept the idea without hesitation. He tells them too that he cannot simply reproduce their view, that he will have to include accounts from other perspectives. And he speaks to them of his scruples about questioning them on such painful events, causing them to relive this traumatic recent past. It hurts to talk about it, they say, but it does us good all the same. In any case, we talk about it with each other every day. Every day we talk about it. A few weeks later, the sociologist writes to the family to tell them that his publisher is willing to publish the book. It is such a poignant day for us to receive that news, replies the Traveller’s sister. Today would have been his fortieth birthday.
Thus
