Le Cahier

In Metz, as of course in all the cities of France, the homeless die in silence. This foreseeable and indifferent death is ultimate exclusion. "They die of cold", the newspapers announce regularly. But they do not die of cold. They die of desertion, sorrow, alcoholism ; they die all alone because they have reached the end of their tether. An investigating journalist, Denis Robert, has devoted a book to the homeless in Metz ("Portrait d’un groupe avant démolition", with photographs by René Taesch). This time he has turned the pages of a notebook, in which the concierge of the Secours catholique restaurant has been writing for ten years, and in alphabetical order, the names of the people who have died on the streets of Metz. Denis Robert sets off on their trail... More than anywhere else, on the streets, they are living on reprieve.