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Thousands of young people came all week in Bayeux, Normandy, to discover the work of the war correspondents. Meet some of them, stunned by the violence of our current world.
From our special correspondent to Bayeux,
It was not just the world of journalists and the media this week for the Bayeux Calvados-Normandie War Correspondents Award 2019. Hundreds of young people followed the lectures, screenings, discovered the multitude of exhibitions on past or current world conflicts. It must be said that the organizers of the event take care of the youth: since 1996, a program dedicated to the public school is offered parallel to the all-public programming.
This Saturday, October 12, thirsty for information, they were in number at the Salon du livre to meet renowned journalists writers, from Georges Malbrunot to Martine Laroche-Joubert via Cécile Hennion, Antoine Glaser, etc. If the war journalist profession is for the majority of them a discovery, the number of conflicts that take place today and their cruelty are another, starting with Syria.
Syria, a shock
" This morning, when I got up, I was shocked to hear that a 5-year-old child had been killed, " says 17-year-old Liza, referring to the Turkish offensive that began a few days ago in the north of the country. Syria. While visiting the exhibition Alep Machine and then viewing the documentary film For Sama , the girl simply discovered that something terrible was happening there. " I feel so bad today to know that I did not know what had happened in Aleppo, " she says, visibly moved to recall the images of the siege of the Syrian city and testimonies read in the course of exhibitions devoted to Syria.
A film that seems to have disrupted many young people. " We have not been told all this info," said Sarah, " all those corpses of girls and boys. I really wish we did not forget to talk about it, even if the war started long ago, that's not a reason . And Enzo goes in the same direction: " We know vaguely that there are wars, but we do not know all the details we have discovered here, especially in Syria. " It's a daily hell we've seen, " adds Dimitri, 16.
► To read also: "For Sama", documentary on the seat of Aleppo ovation with the price Bayeux
All explain that seeing "real images" and not fictions shocked them; to take reality in the face was perceived as a slap. " We are in our daily routine and we do not know that elsewhere it's not the same thing, it's just horror, " Dimitri rebels.
" We did not know "
If the time is now fashionable social networks and citizen journalism, the person of the professional journalist remains for them the only source of reliable and sincere information, the one that tells them the truth, even if it says it apparently too few.
" We did not know before coming here that what was happening in the world was so serious and violent, " laments Romane, 16. " We are hiding a lot of things," says Columbine, 18. We had to come to Bayeux to find out. Now, we are putting things in perspective after seeing all these atrocities . "
►Also read: The Middle East at the heart of the Bayeux 2019 award winners
To listen to them tell, young adults have one thing in common: they want information, not only to act, but also to pass on to future generations what has happened. And then, says Dimitri, " being informed allows us to have a more critical mind about society in general. We need and want to know what's going on . "
According to a study by the Ministry of Culture, 93% of young people aged 15 to 34 say they are interested in information, at a higher or lower intensity, and 15% say they are "addicted to information."
Sarah goes in the same direction as other young people, but for her, no question of risking her life to do this kind of job. " What happened to Wolf Bureau, which we met, does not make me want to be a war journalist ," concedes Dimitri.
Wolf Bureau is a young journalist who was jailed for sixty days in a high-security prison in Turkey in 2017. As he sought to join Raqqa to carry out a report, he was arrested by the Turkish authorities near the Iraqi border. He is accused of terrorism because a photo of him alongside Syrian YPG fighters in 2013 appears on his Facebook profile.
With a richer international news, next year's edition of the Bayeux Calvados-Normandy Prize is likely to be a huge success with younger generations. A lesson in humanism, solidarity and especially humility.
► Exposure program visible until November 3