2022 Guy Ferrandis – Le Bureau Films
Isabelle Huppert, here in the role of Maureen Kearney, ex-unionist of Areva.
CINEMA – The story of Maureen Kearney, many of us missed it at the time of the facts. Many of us have also missed the documentaries and books on this state scandal. Things may change with the March 1 cinema release of The trade unionista new feature film by Jean-Paul Salomé with Isabelle Huppert in the title role.
The story, faithful to the eponymous novel by the journalist from The Obs, Caroline Michel-Aguirre (Stock editions, 2019), looks back on the fight of the former Areva union delegate. The one she led for the employees of the multinational, first. Maureen Kearney was worried about the consequences of an agreement between Areva, EDF and the Chinese nuclear operator CGNPC allowing technology transfers for the development of a new Chinese reactor.
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And then, the one against French justice. In 2012, Maureen Kearney was the victim of a sexual assault. She was found at home, tied to a chair, the letter “A” scarified on her stomach and the handle of a knife stuck in her vagina. Maureen Kernay is convinced of this: her aggression is linked to her commitment. An investigation is opened.
But now, no fingerprints were found, except hers, those of her husband and the cleaning lady. In front of justice, Maureen Kearney seems cold, almost insensitive to what has just happened to her. We also learn that she was the victim of a first rape when she was young. Exhausted, Maureen Kearney says she made it all up, then finally retracts. She passes for a mythomaniac. Justice turns against her and accuses her of having staged her own aggression.
“A double punishment”
Finally released in November 2018 on appeal of the charges of false denunciation against her, Maureen Kearney says, in real life, ” no longer believe in justice. According to Isabelle Huppert, interviewed on the sidelines of the film’s release, for Maureen Kearney it is ” double jeopardy ». « Not only what she went through, but also the fact that we don’t believe her “, comments the 69-year-old actress at the microphone of RTLFriday, February 24.
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Denounced and publicized for several years, the shortcomings of justice in terms of violence against women are at the heart of The trade unionist. Starting with the dialogues. ” Stop making a victim look like a culprit asks a policeman to her colleagues. ” Because she was the victim of a rape at 20, she would have invented another one? asks the union representative’s lawyer. She adds : ” The right victim does not exist. »
Much of the film is faithful to what happened, says Jean-Paul Salomé in the production notes. ” Some dialogues are exact to the word, in particular what one hears during the two trialsassures the director. This concern for the truth has been one of the axes of work of the whole team. »
The relentlessness of Pierre Deladonchamps, who embodies the warrant officer convinced that Maureen Kearney is lying, questions. ” It suited everyone to think that this woman was crazy, mythomaniac, that she had invented everything “, continues Jean-Paul Salomé. He takes the example of a recent documentary on the Grégory affair, in which a policeman says he suspected the mother because she was wearing a tight black sweater. ” Unacceptable for a woman who has just lost her child imagines the filmmaker sarcastically.
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Gynecological violence
According to him, the case of Maureen Kearney might have been a little different ten years later. Maybe she would have met more women during the investigation, he thought. Perhaps she would also have escaped the gynecological violence she suffered during this same investigation. The three examinations carried out in one week, including the reconstitution of a knife handle in her vagina, appear on the screen. They leave you speechless.
« I cried, criedsaid the real Maureen Kearney afterwards. In my head, I was screaming, I was screaming ‘help’. I was examined like an animal taken to the vet, and only by men. »
Between 2012 and 2018, the ex-accused’s new lawyers finally discovered that foreign DNA traces were found at the crime scene. They would have been lost during the investigation, we learn in an episode of Feet on the ground, on France Culture, dedicated to the case. ” Not all leads were followed “, according to Jean-Paul Salomé, who relies on the investigation of Caroline Michel-Aguirre. The culprit was never found and Maureen Kearney did not wish to continue the procedure for rape. Like nine out of ten rape victims in France, she did not file a complaint.
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