republique-5 9

Republic-5, Chapter 10

Life has continued in Basseville-on-Earth. This is more than a year since Philippe died. When the newspaper announces that the judgement of the court of appeal is broken for Boutel, Christophe does not care. A few days later, he decides to write to the court of cassation to ask the communication of its judgement. He receives fairly quickly from the criminal chamber the decision No. 6616 of October the 27th, 1999, File 98-85214 Y PF, and reads. It is alleged that the Court of Appeal of Caen did not dealt the requirement as it should have done. It has only said that there was no crime when it should have begun by establishing that nothing had been concealed, the prescription for hidden facts running, fortunately, only from the day they are discovered! Christophe follow it from afar and, by then, doesn’t make anything more in regard of Basseville that, despite what Emilie have told them, he holds responsible for the death of his friend.


Another year has passed, and even a bit more. This time, the newspaper announces the end of proceedings against Boutel. Christophe, without more enthusiasm than last year, requires the new and last Court of Appeal, the one of Paris, to forward him its judgement. This is the final decision, no further appeal is possible, except extraordinary ones. He has received this morning the judgement of the ninth room, section B, dated of November the 15th, 2000, bringing the number 8825 (File No. 99/085.19). Jean-Sébastien came unexpectedly. They learn by reading that, to assert that there had been transact-contracts, the court had more than the lies of Boutel: it also had the written testimony of the tax-collector dated of May the 9th, 1997 which nobody had cited so far. This tax-collector is the one who attended the opening of bids for tender in July 1992 and is also one the one, they throve to come back a second time to vote on the budget in 1997 by boycotting the first meeting. Did he want to avenge the affront? Anyway, he alleges that at the beginning of the bidding process he would have found it normal that the town changes procedure for the one of transact-contract. The court explicitly does not lie and it is a novelty, but even if the sequences of its reasoning are not always easy to follow and even if it manages to never say clearly what is the nature of the markets, the way it develops it arguments clearly shows that it holds the tax-collector’s certificate for establishing that there has been transact-contracts.

-- "Against their prince, their homeland, their oath." What's amazing! Jean-Sébastien says, philosophical: it is worth information on the state channels! They betray the people, which is supposed to be sovereign ... and "their" sovereign "their" prince!
-- And that's the final decision! What role did the president of the general council play in that masquerade? And what role played his position in the department press, especially in the beginning of April 1998? As if by chance, it had been for quite a long time president of a chamber of the same court of appeal of Paris.
However, Christophe realizes that revealing the existence of a declaration by the tax-collector, which had been hidden by the first two courts, the court probably tries to put their feet in the dish, denouncing the conditions under which the administration and elected officials requires them to decide ... Nevertheless, it says that Boutel did not hide that there were transact-contracts, and it repeats that for this reason, the case is barred. But the truth, Christophe and Jean-Sébastien know: municipal councillors interviewed by PJ have affirmed that there had been transact-contracts, and even the architect wrote it to companies! The truth is not that the case is barred because Boutel made no secret that there were transact-contracts. The truth is that the case is not barred because Boutel hid there were biddings ! Boutel should have been re-judged and sentenced as he deserved for the damage he caused to Basseville-on-Earth. The criminal procedure is complete. Despite the hasty departure of Aposs more than two years earlier, Basseville-on-Earth will not have been entitled to justice.

Months pass, Christophe thinks of the courts or the prefecture only when the memory Philippe bring them back. But today, it is the third anniversary of his death. On television, the news just announced that a huge explosion devastated an industrial city: 30 dead, 9,000 injured (on FR2, on June the 3rd, 2005 between 23 am 00 and 23 h 30, we can see images of this Apocalypse!)
An investigation is opened. In contradiction with material elements that would show there has been a terrorist attack, the prosecutor says in the days following the explosion that the cause is certainly an accident. So immediately, Christophe is sure that a prefectural henchman provided recommendations more or less compelling to the prosecutors! The one of Aposs was precisely appointed here a advancement after haggling so efficiently over Basseville Hall case.

Christophe also remained passive when municipal councillors of Basseville, with a free hand to treat all subjects in their own way, decided unanimously to use the money the town will cash in thanks to the decision of the administrative court. The total cost of necessary repairs is estimated to more than twice what suggested insurance and a new damage-book was taken for repair works. But he regretted that the structure has not been verified: there will be no work on it!

For Clementine, we forget a little, things do not go as easily as she could wish. Mayor recently, she contacted eight architects to request a proposal for the repair of the hall. Only three responded: this case is not really attractive! Arduously, work begins.
Christophe expected to see the room covered with steel plates, which in addition to respecting the opinion of Grease, the expert, on the impossibility of using bitumen, has the advantage of preserving the aspect originally wanted by the architect and the municipality at the time, and gained at great cost on the municipal budget.
One day, going by the room, Christophe Potteur has the eye attracted by dark bands that start to lie on the roof.
But yes, that’s it: the workers cover the hall roof with bitumen. It is true that Grease had also said the steel plates would not work! And that's not all: on each side, the side pipes are drilled each of three large, huge windows! It will undoubtedly assist the walls deform less under the gusts!

Is there five years, not ten years? It does not mind much more. He should calculate precisely and this really does not matter! In any case, it is necessarily less old than the time when, young adult, Christophe had dreamed that a young boy showed him, in the centre of a red ceiling around the attachment of a chandelier, a round of elves painted long ago. This little boy, he knows, was his father, Frederic Potteur, and the lady with the dress covered with dust, it was his grandmother, Louise-Madeleine, he has known only when a child. True, at the time of his childhood, his father’s childhood seemed more remote than the storming of the Bastille, from which at least he spoke at school, and also distant, without doubt, that the time when fairies and elves inhabited the marshes and woods around here.

Today, even if it is May the 1st, Christophe surely will not cross elfin to pick up lily of the valley. For several weeks, an idea follows him. When they resigned, all seven, they were determined never again to stand for election, and they kept their word without difficulty! And Philippe died  just after, also in his memory that they did not want to take any part in municipal affairs. But now, after so long, this is not the same. Christophe remembers that the first principles of the republic, those on whose behalf so many people were killed, provided that every citizen, in case of misuse of the delegation of sovereignty which was given collectively to representatives of the people, could resume this delegation and exercise himself, directly, its portion of sovereignty .. In particular with regard to justice, that justice on behalf of the people which is not his own! Long ago he realized that his rights and those of his commune were violated. At the council, despite the years, it's always the same team, even if there has been renewal, it is the same unhealthy pool that continues to feed it! And the shenanigans have also continued, with some periods of calm when you did not hear of nothing, what does not mean that nothing occurred.

Clearly, withdrawing altogether as they did, this was not the solution. Boutel has kept his medal and honours. Dutoit also, coped well. He had political supports play a decisive stage in his case and the agricultural union that he had long hacked was treated like Basseville, the same criminal court judges denied the existence of a black box to the benefit of the agricultural union executives. It must be said that, among other defendants, there was an external auditor and a senator!
No, no, no, we should not have made this choice! Christophe Potteur sits in his office. He must write. As he made when he wrote the note which led the expert to study more precisely the frame of the hall, he thinks about everything he has to say. He already tries to find a way to set a framework. It will be necessary for him to speak of the beginning, when he had no desire to meddle in local politics.

When he thought that corruption was a matter for ministers and political parties. At that time, he had very negative views on politics, but only on national level. Despite everything that was said, he believed that Basseville affairs were in good hands, roughly! And then, three weeks before the elections, the list Boutel came approach him. Only now it is clearer: it was in a bloody round of puppets that Boutel wanted to involve him! Did he have the intuition, he no longer knows. Still, he first refused. And then he changed his mind. That's it! On television, everywhere, to church again, about the municipal elections, we heard everywhere:
-- Run in the election! Go vote!
Then he resumed contact with Boutel but it was too late: the list was complete and he decided to drop: he had intended to go, it was already not bad! And it is at this moment, a week before the first round, that the second Pifon came for the list of Pierre Dutoit. As he had said yes to Boutel, he could not do otherwise than to say yes to Dutoit, a friend of Frederick, his father! And, until their resignation, he did what he really believed that the republic was waiting from him, he wanted to enforce its law and the principles it shows!


Now, he is convinced he will try something else: justice has not fulfilled its main function, that is telling the truth. So Christophe decides he will no longer vote but act more by himself and, so much as possible, exercise by himself the sovereignty he has as citizens. To begin with, the truth that he was denied, he will say it himself! He will write to let know how things happen in reality. And in the title, he will speak of rotten installed at the controls of the state because, in opposing the municipal delinquency, he faced the state delinquency!
But he no longer want to go on the first line, even if he left this first line long ago: he is not seeking stardom but rather peace, then he will not write under his name.
  It will not read his book to those of his former colleagues in the municipal council with whom he remained in contact: Only Jean-Sébastien, who had the same idea as him, it will help. Christophe thinks of the last time he saw him: Jean-Sébastien had invited him for the baptism of his second child. Christophe returns to the topic of concern: outside naturally his wife, Myriam Potteur, but also Jean-Sébastien, so it will not aware person: a person! It will be easier to manage!
And then, what he has to show is what they had witnessed, and what he knows. But he may still remain hidden. He meditates then the Chinese proverb: "When the finger shows the moon, the idiot looks at the finger. "
It will not happen. If she agrees, he will sign under the name of his wife, Myriam Potteur. That should please her: did she not already sign the shovel of  December the 18th? So, Christophe starts his computer and tapes the first sentences.
At the same time, aged of a little more than eighty-five years, what means roughly the same age as the expert at the end of the expertise of the multipurpose hall, Otto has a new mission, abroad this time. Despite the years, he always pursued the conversation he had with Aposs when he was nearly eighty years… He was always more possessed by anger since Aposs spoke him. This anger was only very partially drained by the crisis in the days that followed.
This violence increased constantly, it will not disappear alone. The idea of switching to the action germinated in his mind and it took form, almost regardless of his will. He will retire in a few months from RIBT. Immediately, he goes on weekend not more than once a month, and about the same for holidays! He says that when he will retire, then he will visit Basseville-on-Earth in a private capacity. And he will see what’s going on really.
END