Kids from France
At 11:05 p.m. on France 2
Sofia is 13 years old and lives with her mother, brother and grandmother. Evicted from their accommodation, the family now lives in an ATD Fourth World center. For her work, which earns her 500 € per month, her mother travels four hours there and back.
Jassim, 17, lives in low-cost housing with his parents and sister. They live on his father’s disability pension. Benjamin, 15, is very close to his diabetic mother, to whom he measures blood sugar levels in the morning, at noon and in the evening. They eat thanks to the Secours populaire.
Brocéliande, 21 years old, did “No more family” and lives in a hostel. She takes care of the elderly and earns € 400 per month …
→ CRITICAL. “The Children of the slag heap”, the shrinking future of poor children
All of them tell, with their adolescent gaze, the poverty seen from the inside. At the end of the month, which begins on the 15th, “When you open the fridge, there is only light”,Sofia jokes. In Benjamin’s house, only donated items can be found. But that doesn’t bother him. What bothers him, “Is that we live thanks to others”. He also knows that, unable to afford a pizza with friends, he misses moments that “Create friendship”.
“Being in precariousness and being with a girl”
What makes the strength of this documentary, built without a voiceover but with figures embedded in the images, is that it lets these very young people analyze their situation themselves.
Sofia makes the link between the social hotels where she lived and her school failures which earned her an orientation in Segpa (section of general and adapted vocational education) which she does not see well. Jassim notes that since the mine closed, “The city has become dead, there is more life and it’s every man for himself”.
He admires his big sister who worked to pay for a car and thinks that“Being in precariousness and being with a girl is complicated because she wants us to pamper her”. He confesses to having sold cannabis in the past to make money. It was, he said, his father’s disappointment when he heard about it that saved him.
.
