Johanna Silva, the intimate and political story of a former shut buddy of François Ruffin | EUROtoday

Readers of the ebook by journalist Rachid Laïreche François Ruffin. Revenge of the bumpkins (Les Arènes, 2021) maybe keep in mind “Johanna”, this thriller character that the narrator searches for in useless, like a key able to illuminating his topic. It was in actuality Johanna Silva, former parliamentary attaché to François Ruffin (in 2017 and 2018). The architect of the latter's victory within the 2017 legislative elections, within the Somme, below the label of La France insoumise (LFI), the 35-year-old younger girl comes out of the shadows in his identify after years of silence.

In a ebook titled Love and revolution (Textual, 288 pages, 21.50 euros), revealed on March 6, it delivers a narrative, typically destabilizing, between the intimate and the political. Two areas that are not often handled collectively, however which Johanna Silva makes an attempt to carry collectively in a textual content within the type of feminist reconquest.

When the story begins, in 2013, Johanna Silva is barely 25 years outdated. François Ruffin remains to be solely an autodidact from Amiens politics who writes his diary, Fakirwith a small staff. “He was old, a real adult. Worst: a father », the young graduate of Sciences Po Lille remembers thinking. Just before starting a romantic relationship with him, which she now wonders if she deserves that name.

Fatigue and disillusionment

Initially a volunteer, Johanna Silva joined the team of Fakir. From the filming of the documentary Thanks boss ! to the Nuit Debout movement on the Place de la République (Paris), in 2016, and until the legislative election campaign of 2017, she became essential in the organization of the Ruffinist galaxy, the production of its films, animation activist. “With François, I could do anything. Anything or almost anything. He pushed me in areas in which I was useful to him. When it came to writing, or public speaking, it was much less pressing.”she notes.

It shows the ups and downs of left-wing activism. After the excitement of the first “nights up”she talks about fatigue and disillusionment: “It’s great that people finally have a space to speak, and if there is such success, it’s because there was a need. But I can't stand this eternal starting again. »

Over the years, dissonances appear. In a meeting in Le Havre with Assa Traoré, the sister of Adama Traoré – who died during an arrest by gendarmes in Beaumont-sur-Oise (Val-d'Oise), in the summer of 2016 –, in all beginning of his mandate, François Ruffin refuses to commit to taking his cause to the National Assembly: “Before I commit to anything, I must investigate”he replies. “On police violence, (…) it’s as if it hadn’t sunk into his head that they were the work of a system and not isolated blunders”believes Johanna Silva.

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