“The injustice for children revolts me”

What did you expect from this passage through writing?

I did not write my story to cry on my fate, but to say “stop”! Stop violence against children placed by social assistance to childhood (ASE, ex-DDASS). I want to make known what I experienced, and that is why I sent my book to Mr. and Mrs. Macron as well as several ministers. You only needed young people to be condemned to heroism to get out of it. It would only take 18 years, when the protection of ASE ceases, they find themselves on the street. We should help nurses more and recognize the value of each child.

At what age have you been placed?

My mother had been shot from her parental rights because she had let a girl die before me. I was put in nursery from my first year, then I went to several host families. I only remember the last two: a couple who had a German shepherd, so kind that he let me snuggle against him in his basket, then Mr. and Mrs. C., with whom I stayed from 4 and a half to 12 years. Then, I was entrusted to my mother again, and I grew up with four brothers and sisters, of different fathers from mine, who had not been abandoned. A fifth brother, the eldest of all, had been removed by his father and grew up in Germany.

Why did you title your book ” Don’t say it »» ?

I was 5 years old and I was peeing in bed. It was awful, I had the trouble. Mrs. C. held her perfectly clean house, and the slaps fell for nothing. One day, her husband, on the pretext of helping me avoid these “accidents” took me to the bathroom, showed me her sex, caressed me, touched inside. It was repeated for three years. I felt ashamed, I was in pain. His words: “Don’t say it, don’t say it to Granny”, I still hear them. No one had explained to me that he was not allowed to do that. Another child placed in M. and Mrs. C., Claudine, a little older than me, suffered even more sexual violence. She talked about it to a doctor. No reports were made to ASE or justice. Ms. C. asked for divorce and we have not seen MC again

Did writing relieve you?

I cried a lot … People don’t see what’s going on behind the very presentable facade of destructive families. The injustice for children revolts me. But, yes, writing also did me a lot of good. It was an old idea, however I only got there during confinement. My dyslexia – I redoubled all my classes – for a long time handicapped me, but I hung on. I had difficulty obtained a leather aid diploma, and later succeeded in an administrative agent exam that allowed me to continue working after a stroke. I am a fighter. At 50 spent, I started boxing, it also did me a lot of good (laugh), but this stroke forced me to stop.

How do you look at your mother, who died?

She came from a bourgeois environment. After a childhood in which she had been pampered, she went from bad to worse, engaging in unhappy relationships with men. I really wanted him to have abandoned me. Little, I was looking for a mother in female figures. At school, when a mom came to get her child, I was approaching to prick a caress, a “my darling”; I wanted to be adopted. When she took me home, installed with my stepfather, a violent and alcoholic man, she called me “the little bougnoule” because my father was Maghreb. Pregnant with me, she wanted to have an abortion, she told me one day. I saw that I was not part of the family. Today, however, I mean that she was not mean.

What’s going on at your 18th birthday?

The social worker, a very kind gentleman, tells me that I can no longer be helped, unless I start studying. For several years, I had been running away, slept with friends, dried up the prices of the vocational high school. So much so that I found myself for some time on the street, while working as a waitress. One day, a client told me a lady who could accommodate me in exchange for services. Not only that lady, whom I call Mamie D., housed me but she did much more for me.

It was the start of a series of meetings …

I still made the very unfortunate knowledge of a man who used me as a saleswoman, and who raped me. I aborted, lost my joy and started doing anything, then tried to commit suicide by emptying the medication cabinet. At the end of the hospital, Mamie D. was there, telling me that she loved me. I never heard that. I was not 20 years old and I was collapsed.

It was also then that I converted. Granny D. was absent from Lille to celebrate Easter with the family. She had left me alone in her apartment after filling the fridge and asking the concierge to keep an eye on me. The day of Easter, rather than staying in front of the TV, I went to a church in the neighborhood, near the little quinquin. To communion, I took the host and said thank you. For me, it was a piece of bread. Once returned to my place, I felt a warmth throughout my body, the impression that two hands were on my shoulders, like a hug, a hug received from the good Lord. I couldn’t stop crying.

It is still thanks to Mamie D. that you had a stable job?

Yes, she told me that the nursing school of the Catholic Institute of Lille recruited a goalkeeper. I presented myself, at the cheek, as the best for the position. The nun who received me did not seem enthusiastic. Did we have information about my family? The secretary asked me a few questions and understood my journey, because she herself welcomed two children from the DDASS. I thus worked seven years in this school.

It is still thanks to Mamie D. that you had a stable job?

Yes, she told me that the nursing school of the Catholic Institute of Lille recruited a goalkeeper. I presented myself, at the cheek, as the best for the position. The nun who received me did not seem enthusiastic. Did we have information about my family? The secretary asked me a few questions and understood my journey, because she herself welcomed two children from the DDASS. I thus worked seven years in this school.

There, I got to know Sister Ignatius, well known in Lille for her action with the fairgrounds, who trained me in food and distributions of food. One day, at a mass with the fairgrounds, I met Cécile and Robert, both very committed to the social action of the Church. Cécile often came to the Catho where she animated a chaplaincy. It was she who taught me to read and introduced literature, which has become a passion. The day of my 20th birthday, Mamie D., Cécile and Robert surrounded me. I came back to life. I had a family of heart.

Summer arrives, do you have projects?

I’m going to go to Lourdes. In the early 1980s, assumptionist priests (2) passed through Mamie D. thanks to them, I made my first pilgrimage. In Lourdes, people help each other, full of humanity. All are looking for the same thing.

That’s to say ?

Love. Compassion. Serenity. I think that in every being, even in those who hurt, there is this desire. Anyone can give. We are not born mean. We are just afraid, maybe.

(1) Departmental Directorate of Health and Social Affairs.

(2) The Bayard group, of which is a part The pilgrim, belongs to the congregation of the Augustins of the Assumption.

The failure of the institution

“A system that cracks from all sides”, “inappropriate legislation” … The report of the commission of inquiry on the shortcomings of public child protection policies, published on April 1, underlined the catastrophic state of the ASE.

The serious Dysfunctions of the ASE regularly lead to dramas: deceased children, abused, or targeted by prostitution networks, not to mention psychological or health disorders. Nearly 400,000 children are placed, a number that continues to increase. The life expectancy of these children is twenty years older than the national average. 45 % of young people aged 18 to 25 without a fixed home were children placed.