 
|
|
|
|
| The rebels of Cayenne. The first colonial proceedings in Nantes |
 |
 |
| DOCUMENTARY |
|
|
|
| On March 9th 1931, during an extraordinary session of the Assize Court, one of the most important proceedings, between the two world wars, started in Nantes. A gang of 12 men and 2 women, all French citizens of French Guyana, were judged for murders and pillages. They had to answer about facts incurred on August 6th and 7th 1928, during which 6 men died. The 14 defendants faced a jury of 12 men, all coming from the Nantes area. What would be the verdict after a 12 day session? The Parisian lawyers, including the famous Henry Torrès and also Gaston Monnerville, who became President of the Senate, pleaded not guilty. They proved that the crimes perpetrated were the consequence of cheating over the elections. The defendants only wanted one thing: not to be considered any more as inferior citizens. On March 21st 1931, they were acquitted. This brotherly act from the Nantes Jury allowed the French Guyana citizens to exercise their rights as the other French people to free themselves from the political slavery as well as that of the lawyers who revealed the colonial cheating. |
 consult
the whole file |
|
|
|
|
|
| when the red flag floated on the cathedral |
 |
|
| DOCUMENTARY |
|
|
|
| Between November 8th and 22nd, 1918, committees of soldiers and workers were organized in Alsace by sailors, most of them being Alsacians, coming from Kiel and Wilhelmshafen ports. They revolted against their hierarchy that had decided to fight a last battle (lost in advance), out of honor, against the English fleet.
With a strong revolutionary feeling they proclaimed a socialist republic in Strasbourg with the objective of keeping this region as part of Germany which would become revolutionary and internationalist instead of being imperialist and defeated but also taking it away from the French capitalism.
History decided a different way.
|
| consult
the whole file |
|
|
|
|
|
| Adrien Marquet, from Jaurès to Pétain |
 |
|
| DOCUMENTARY |
|
|
|
| During 50 years, Adrien Marquet was away from the Bordeaux history, though he had been elected socialist Mayor of the town in 1925 and left there a strong impress until 1944. Excluded from the SFIO before the arrival of the Front Populaire, he became in 1940 and for some months, home Secretary in Petain’s government in Vichy. He was then quite close to the circles of ultra-collaborationists in Paris. During the raids and execution of hostages in Bordeaux, he had no reaction about it. After the liberation, he was arrested and judged in 1947-48. He was ineligible, but however, intended to come back in politics and briefly weakened Jacques Chaban Delmas whose arrival in Bordeaux had allowed to leave behind the Occupation time. Marquet died in 1955 after he felt faint at the stand of a meeting. In the literal and figurative sense, he was buried and his souvenir re-appeared only in the 2000’s owing to historians’ searches. |
| consult
the whole file |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
