‘Merci patron!’: the film that started a labour movement
The documentary genre is one of the most powerful vehicles for social change within the realm of cinema. By providing audiences with access to direct footage of social injustice and other sociopolitical developments, documentarians play an important role in promoting critical thinking and political awareness.
Although documentaries about social changes are often serious, journalist François Ruffin adopted a different approach for his 2016 film Merci patron! A scathing critique of capitalist structures and wealth inequality, Ruffin embarks on a special journey to investigate the closures of factories in his region – a subject that he had followed for years.
In an interview published by the International Journal of Communication, Ruffin said: “There have been a ton of documentaries, or fictional treatments of social suffering, the closing of businesses. How, with this material, do I give people the feeling that I have a fresh take, that it’s new? I think that’s what made the film succeed. It’s that we manage to treat a subject as serious as that with an imaginative tone, which is also a victory.”
Merci patron! focuses on the predatory operations of French billionaire Bernard Arnault – the CEO of LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods company. While Arnault tries to leave France and outsources French jobs to increase his profit margins, working-class families struggle to find jobs in a destabilised economy.
Ruffin added: “In editing, I organised the film a bit like a Scottish shower: You go from something serious to something funny, and then back to something serious. If you make something heavy, you know, sad from beginning to end, that’s overwhelming for viewers. If you go from one to the other, from hot to cold, the contrast makes things remarkable…the contrast between wealth and poverty, between the worlds of the billionaire Bernard Arnault and the Klurs, and the contrast between laughter and seriousness.”
By setting up hidden cameras, infiltrating shareholders’ meetings and documenting how huge corporations exploit workers even after they have been fired, Merci patron! emphasises the urgency of strong labour rights. Interestingly, it also contributed to the rise of an actual labour movement in France called Nuit debout.
Often compared to the Occupy movement, the Nuit debout movement started to gather momentum in 2016 to oppose the El Khomri law, which allows employers to lay off workers and cut down on overtime pay and severance pay. If you’re interested in learning more about the origin of the movement, Merci patron! portrays the bleak labour landscape which kickstarted it all.
