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in the porter’s lodge, one of the two security guards offers him a chair, holds out a telephone. He settles in, calls management, he’s very much at home. When he comes out again:
    ‘In a quarter of an hour, the managers will start coming out, in their cars, of course. The senior managers will meet you in two hours’ time at the town hall. If that’s agreeable to you, of course.’
    Then Quignard walks off in the direction of the roundabout, where his chauffeur-driven car is waiting, a big black Mercedes. He exchanges a few words with the three state officials, it’ll all work out fine, no reason why it shouldn’t, nobody wants war. A little further on, he passes a grim-faced Maréchal who’s come to find out the latest.
    ‘Antoine, are you going inside the factory?’
    ‘No. My shift finishes at two p.m. and until I have more information , I’m not on strike.’
    ‘So you can come with me to my office. Negotiations should begin very soon, and Park will keep me informed by telephone. I’d like to have your opinion.’
    ‘Got anything to drink?’
    A smile. ‘As usual, your favourite brandy.’
    ‘There’s nobody’s waiting for me at home.’
     
    On the waste ground behind the factory, Karim has set up his little business. He likes the place. Before him the valley’s verdant slopes stretch down to Pondange. When he was little, it was a street filled with blast furnaces – fire, noise, smoke and dust, day and night. His father wore himself out working at one blast furnace afteranother, and Karim’s destiny, as the eldest son, was all mapped out. At sixteen, a steelworker, alongside his father. Today, his father is slowly dying on a good pension, while he’s thriving on small time wheeling and dealing. The air is pure and the valley is green, life’s good, seen from the Daewoo waste ground. He makes kindling from the pallets, sets up a makeshift barbecue and, with the collusion of the cafeteria manager, is cooking the sausages he sells cheaply on improvised wire skewers.
    Two burly, thuggish-looking strangers with close-cropped hair, aggressive thirty-year-olds, are walking slowly towards him, their hands behind their backs. They look like cops, and none too friendly thinks Karim, who hesitates, glancing around. Nowhere to run. Spots the navy-blue ‘Security’ jackets, the uniform of Daewoo’s security guards. Relieved, Karim smiles at them and proffers two skewers. ‘For you, no charge.’ The two men nod, take the sausages and walk off without a word. Karim continues serving his customers, and for a little bit extra, he slips a gram of hash into the paper napkin containing the pair of sausages he hands to his regulars. A smoking corner has been set up in the stockroom , in the midst of the polystyrene packaging, well away from the security guards’ path.
     
    Rolande is in the cafeteria and has taken over the kitchen area. She sets to work with precise gestures, assembling crockery and cutlery. Cheerfully she peels, rinses, chops and stirs. Earth mother. To her it’s half a game, half sublimated desire. Her way of being part of the collective action.
     
    The first car loses no time in leaving the executives’ car park on the right-hand side of the building. It heads for the gate between two lines of men and women workers who have come running from all corners of the factory to stand and jeer. They stare at the car’s occupant, lean over the bonnet, thump and occasionally kick the bodywork, feeling a real thrill at being the ones to instil fear. It’s all good-natured ebullience for the moment. Étienne, all psyched up, has a good laugh. Aisha, starting out in the front line, amazed at her daring, soon tires of the game, too many men up too close, she allows herself to be edged out of the crowd and goes into the porter’s lodge where the two inscrutable security guards are making coffee. They offer her a cup.
    A first then a second car leave without hindrance. At the wheel are French managers,