Un specter haunts the French left: Pierre Goldman. The film by Cédric Kahn, The Goldman Trial, released in theaters on September 27, brings this ghost back to life by placing him back in the dock. It was during his second trial, in 1976, before the Somme Assize Court. A far-left activist in the 1960s, he was a gangster and writer, journalist and lover of West Indian music. He lived in Paris, sometimes staying in Latin America under a false identity. His assassination in 1979, which remained unpunished, deepened the halo of mystery that surrounded him.
In the mid-1970s, on trial for armed robbery and intentional homicide, Pierre Goldman received the support of numerous intellectuals and artists, from Simone Signoret to Jean-Paul Sartre, from Régis Debray to Maxime Le Forestier. The fascination has not stopped since: Goldman would be a hero carrying utopia, a rebel who refused to compromise with society, an outlaw who transformed his life into destiny. Alain Krivine, a figure of the extreme left, declared more prosaically: “He screwed up, but he’s family.” » As to Goldman trialit features a charismatic accused, full of verve and audacity, denouncing the racism of the police from his box.
From a historical point of view, the character of Goldman corresponds to two myths which merge in him: the highwayman and the delinquent enemy of society. The British historian of Marxist inspiration Eric Hobsbawm was interested in “social bandits” of the 18th centurye and XIXe centuries, showing that this rural phenomenon is born in societies threatened by emerging capitalism or economic crises: Cartouche and Mandrin in France, Jesse James and Billy the Kid in the Far West, Pancho Villa in Mexico, haïdouks in the Balkans, all these “ Robin Hoods” appear as vigilantes righting wrongs.
Revolutionary potential
The second myth, more specific to the 20th centurye century, is that of the delinquent at war against society. A thief like Jean Genet or a robber like Jacques Mesrine, he steals to denounce the abjection of money king and the omnipotence of the State. He dares to defy the masters of the world instead of obeying them like an automaton; hence its revolutionary potential. From then on, the transition from romantic bandit to urban guerrilla indicates a rise in power: the “primitive rebels” studied by Eric Hobsbawm announce the quartermasters of the Grand Soir.
Since the 1948 petition launched by Sartre and Cocteau in favor of Genet, finally pardoned by the President of the Republic (at the very moment when Genet sings the praises of the Nazis and the militia), high-level delinquents have benefited from constant solidarity left-wing intellectuals. With fascinating paradoxes: their violence is systematically euphemized, while they are supposed to be the spearhead of the revolution; they charm because they have broken the law, while being presented as oppressed; and these crooks are applauded by all of Paris as brilliant men of letters.
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