Toulouse. Fifty years later, the photographer claims his shots of the murder of Pierre Overney
In February 1972 in Paris, Christophe Schimmel took photos of the murder of Pierre Overney, killed in front of the Renault Billancourt factory. His photos were seized by the courts but the photographer wants them back.
“It’s not for me but to put the truth back into history”. Christophe Schimmel, 68 years old today, appeals to the Keeper of the Seals, Eric Dupont Moretti. 2002, this militant established in Toulouse since fights in order to recover what “belongs to him”. Shots that this photographer, who was then 18 years old, took in front of the Renault Billancourt factory.
A symbol of the workers’ and students’ struggles of the time. But this Friday, February 25, 1972, Pierre Overney, in his early twenties, said Pierrot, died “gunned down” in the factory. Christophe revealed himself by his side. An activist photographer, he took 39 shots. Silver film that the justice then seized.
“I was an activist and I had just founded the Liberation press agency, remembers Christophe. It is within this framework that I went on this action. He killed Pierrot with a gun, while this man (Editor’s note, Jean-Antoine Tramoni, sentenced by the Paris Assize Court in 1973) was simply responsible for cleaning in the factory. When he shot Pierrot, I had my reflex as a professional photographer, I’m the only one to have taken pictures. I was called as a witness before the Assize Court in 1973. The court and the jurors had two books of my photos. I know that my negatives were cut out and I am the only one who can reconstruct the crime in the order of the photos I took”.
Ready for a hunger strike
Fifty years later, Christophe, father of four children and who lives in Toulouse, wants to recover these documents, his “property, the photos that I took”. Placed under seal during the murder of Pierre Overney, the films could be recovered by the photographer as early as 2002. “I have been fighting for twenty years now, he summarizes, gripped by emotion. I wrote to the Keeper of the Seals, with acknowledgment of receipt. So far, I haven’t gotten any response. It’s not normal “.
Determined, the photographer assures: “I want to know if I can recover my negatives or, at least, know what has become of them. After twenty years of struggle, without response, I will start a hunger strike and hunger strike on Wednesday April 6th. I am not suicidal. For me this decision is not easy. This lonely fight must have a way out. Justice must answer me and it must return my photos to me.
If he recovers his arrears, Christophe intends to “transfer them to a social structure and to the INA”. For History.