“I lived in prison like a free guy, thanks to literature and my mind” | EUROtoday

Free, even “in the closet”? The one who tried thrice to flee swears sure. “I have always lived in prison like a free guy, thanks to literature and my mind. I chose to do that, so I had nothing to complain about. When I heard guys in prison who said they were victims of society, I told them: “Read about guys who were locked up for their ideas in Russia, in China… Read The Gulag Archipelago of Solzhenitsyn, the Stories from Kolyma by Shalamov, Memories of the House of the Dead by Dostoyevsky… All these authors really built me ​​intellectually. »

I started studying philosophy at Health.

Because it was in his cell that Fabrice Rose, now a volunteer for the Lire pour en Sort association, discovered reading. “I was at the center for a long time with Georges Ibrahim Abdallah [le plus vieux prisonnier politique de France, NDLR]. On walks, we talked about politics, literature, the books we read… My greatest escape is books. »

READ ALSO Meeting with Léa Todorov: “The worst thing is pity, it’s abominable! » In the last power station he attended, in Moulins-Yzeure (Allier), one of the safest in France at the time, he even created a library. The taste for writing will come later. In the ditch. At the end of the 1990s, in Gradignan, to spend forty-five days in a disciplinary unit, he took a few books from a box, including Pylon by William Faulkner.

“On page 30, there are 10 pages missing… On page 60, there are still some missing…” He explains that in jail inmates typically tear out pages, notably to roll cigarettes. And continues: “I take a draft notebook and try to piece together the story. » A year later, in another prison, there he was again in the solitary confinement, in the company of Faulkner and Sanctuary, this time. Same, he tries to write the missing pages and then he says to himself: “Damn, I can write!” » “It’s also revenge against the school,” he analyzes. Then, I began finding out philosophy at Santé, a instructor got here to see me each week. »

I gave my daughter my phrase. And I didn't break my phrase.

If Rose went from robber to creator, it’s a little due to Faulkner and quite a bit due to his daughter. Alexandra is the heroine of her first ebook, Like father, like lady (Bête Noire Booksellers Prize, 2020), the story of a revenge-loving gangster dad and his daughter in mortal hazard. Alexandra, in actual life, solely noticed her father via the jail visiting rooms.

One Sunday in 2000, on the age of twenty-two, she went to the Moulins-Yzeure energy plant. “Suddenly, she starts to cry…” Silence. Fabrice Rose continues, with a lump in his throat: “I stupidly said to him: “Who hurt you?” She stated to me: “You. I want you to stop.” And then I spotted… Outlaws, we don't have the appropriate to have youngsters as a result of we're not there to care for them, this father of two youngsters and now a grown-up realizes. -father. When I used to be little, in school, she stated that her father had gone to {photograph} lions in Africa… whereas I used to be within the closet. » His eyes misty, his voice barely audible, he whispers: “I gave my word to my daughter. And I didn't break my word. » The page is turned, Rose the robber, it's over.

Fabrice Rose is a novel in itself. Several publishers have also offered to write his story, but he is not interested. Of course, he draws inspiration from his life in his thrillers, but what he loves is fiction, the breathtaking adventures carried by endearing bandits. When he puts himself in the shoes of Marc Man, his hero, and his gang, he undoubtedly finds a little of that adrenaline that kept him going during all these years as an outlaw.

Hold-ups to finance jazz concerts

At the Gironde assizes, in 1996, the psychological expert was not mistaken: he already noted “a particularly rich imaginary life” in the man who was appearing for having committed six hold-ups in banks in the South-West and who was sentenced to eighteen years in prison. His loot of 2.2 million francs will be used in part to organize jazz concerts. He thus brought the pianist Randy Weston to Bordeaux, and the singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, to whom he had written in prison. “The day after the concert, we took a walk in the Médoc vineyards, and there, at sunrise, Dee Dee started to sing a cappella… This is one of the happiest days of my life! »

Twelve years after his last conviction, he has definitively come out of this spiral. On December 23, 2005, he walked along the wall of the Moulins power station, passed without looking back under the watchtower and in his head came this tune from Axel Bauer: “Cargo ship at night, thirty-five days without seeing land…” Outside, on this Christmas Eve, he’s shocked by the “violence” he finds within the streets of Paris.

Breaking up colleges, burning libraries, the neighbor's vehicles, that's past me…

“I don’t understand today’s delinquency… It’s totally beyond me,” says the person who usually returns to jail to prepare reading-writing workshops. “I see minors aged 13-14 who have been convicted of drugs, these kids are cannon fodder! I tell them: “I spent twenty-five years of my life in the closet, I started working at 50, I won't have a pension. Is this what you want ?” They don't care, they are impervious to what anyone tells them. » He also did not understand the violence of certain young people which manifested itself after the death of Nahel last June: “Going to break up schools, burning libraries which are for them, the neighbor's cars, that's all for me. is beyond me…”

He remembers that he by no means stole non-public vehicles: “We stole cars from dealerships! » It was another time, a “beautiful time” for robbers, in the end, he admits, even when it isn’t politically right to say so. They weren’t geolocated, they might go on the run for years, their baggage was not subjected to airport X-rays. “When I flew, my weapons were in my cabin bag, above my head. »

Almost two hours later, in this café in Bercy, Fabrice Rose leaves us. His train to Vichy is waiting for him. He picks up his travel bag. Inside, no tickets or weapons, but lots of books and memories that he will undoubtedly tell his grandchildren one day.

*Like father like daughter (2020) and The plan (2022), collection The Black Beast, Robert Laffont.

Every Sunday, “Le Point” has assembly with well-known and lesser-known personalities from the world of tradition, tv, cinema, gastronomy, sport, enterprise… They participate within the recreation of intimate interviews, telling us about their journey, generally strewn with pitfalls, give us some confidences and provides us their imaginative and prescient of society.