Gens du pays

‘Gens du pays’ by Marc-Antoine Cyr is a contemporary play that explores issues of identity in today’s France with subtlety and urgency. The story follows Martin Martin, a teenager stopped by the police without any identity papers, who claims to be French but whose “skin colour, according to the policewoman, says the opposite of the word ‘France’”. Caught between a police interrogation and a school project on origins led by his teacher, Martin finds himself “harassed by questions that call for just one simple answer that adults seem unable to hear: My name is Martin Martin, I’m from here, I live here, I’m here. I’m French ”.

This play, written by a Quebec-born author based in Paris and supported by the Centre National du Théâtre, aptly explores what it means to belong to a country and “if France has become his identity, can one don a country like a garment?&