Seules face à lui

I can still picture the classroom, the faces of my friends watching us leave – the last time I would ever see them – their fear, that day, that hour, and the hours that followed. But above all, the minutes that came before. When he came in, he fired a shot into the air. After a few seconds: silence – the silence of danger that leaves no room for doubt. He spoke plainly and quickly; he was calm. He divided us into two groups: girls and boys, and made us leave. I ran as fast as I could. Drawing on extensive research into the anti-feminist attack at the École Polytechnique in Montreal on 6 December 1989, as well as several mass shootings in the US and Europe, *Seules face à lui* examines the place of survivors in our contemporary tragedies. The survivors – women and men – who, every day, try to carry on, to fight, to understand.