Awareness & mobilization
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Article uploaded on August 15, 2021
More than fifty years after discovering Palestine, Françoise Guyot made this land her second homeland. Portrait of a CCFD-Terre Solidaire volunteer who, over the years, has become a tireless advocate for “refugees from within” who fight for the respect of their rights.
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Rawan Bisharat of Sadaka reut with Françoise Guyot.
The time, in this month of May, has not yet come to take up your pilgrim’s staff, except to explore the hiking trails crisscrossing the La Chartreuse massif that Françoise knows by heart …
But, like nature that awakens in the spring after a winter made interminable by the pandemic, it is already ready to pack its bags. “If all goes well, we should leave in September”, she explains, a smile on her lips.
There, the small group she will accompany will be welcomed with open arms by her Palestinian friends, of whom she is today one of the most active spokespersons. A companionship driven by the idea that “Injustice and evil will not triumph”, continues Françoise who has developed, since her retirement in 2008, “solidarity trips” to the lands of Palestine.
Previously, for thirty years, she was one of the linchpins of the home hospitalization service of the CHU de Grenoble, where she exercised her gifts as a “weaver of links”.
Initiatory journey for more than 500 volunteers
Its objective in Palestine? Provide a unique experience for the more than 500 volunteers who went to meet a people scarred by the Israeli occupation. His right to return to the land of his ancestors was violated, and he was attacked by the colonists who built their plan of encirclement stone by stone.
For Françoise, the discovery of this reality began in 1965 when she first set foot in the Holy Land. “Initially, with a friend, we were excited to go to kibbutz land,” she recalls. We joined a group of pilgrims. “
Their journey begins in Nazareth and continues to Jerusalem where the shock occurs. “A young man was staring at us. He just told us “I am a Palestinian”, and suddenly everything changed. Since the start of the trip, we had never heard of Palestine. “
From that day was born the desire to understand why these men and women did not have the right to have a state of their own. A quest for meaning that has never ceased to tease Françoise. Installed in Grenoble, she found at the turn of the 1980s, activists involved in a Franco-Palestinian association and reconnected with her questions.
With her husband, she shares this desire to go beyond the accumulation of knowledge to confront them, in the field, with real life. During the stays on site, a trajectory takes shape ranging from astonishment to listening to the people encountered, through anger when the bullets whistle during the first and even more during the second. Intifada.
Neither in front nor behind, next to the Palestinians
“I think she’s half Palestinian. We feel her presence by our side, even when she is far from us. It gives us hope. »- Rawan Bisharat, director of Sadaka reut
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In this story – now transcribed in a book [1] -, the places gradually give way to the faces of women, men and children. The same humanity everywhere. Everywhere also the same humiliations and the same wounds. Not enough to make Françoise lose her intellectual rigor: “On each of my trips, I go to see CCFD-Terre Solidaire partners in Israel as well as in the Palestinian territories. I want to listen to everyone to form an opinion ”, she insists.
An approach welcomed by Rawan Bisharat director of Sadaka Reut, partner of CCFD-Terre Solidaire which brings together young Jews and Arabs in Israel. “I knew Françoise thanks to my mother who had told me about her and through our email exchanges. In Nazareth, two years ago, she spoke at a conference. Without ever having seen her photo, I knew it was her! she says. She has something special: a way of listening, of letting everyone express themselves without ever interfering. “
This tireless collector of testimonies makes it a point of honor to “connect” all the people she meets within a vast network whose sons, who left Grenoble or Jerusalem, form a large constellation. “She acts as we do,” laughs Rawan Bisharat. I think she’s half Palestinian. We feel her presence by our side, even when she is far from us. It gives us hope. “
A hope she never wanted to give up, “Even if the situation is much worse today for the Palestinians than in 1965. Everything takes place in total international indifference, further accentuated by the health crisis”, regrets the one who against all odds remains faithful to her fight, while always making sure to keep the right distance: “I am neither in front nor behind, but next to the Palestinians”, she slips, with a certain humility.
To better discover Françoise Guyot’s fight and her adventures in Palestine, immerse yourself in the book she has just published “Palestine, the force of hope”:
[1] Palestine, The Wild Thought editions, 2020
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