The former professional raseteur has become a mediator for young people in priority areas of Nîmes. His motto: “When you need me, I’ll be there.”
“Our greatest reward is when they succeed.” This sentence sums up the state of mind in which Ludovic Zerti works. Employed by the People and Culture Gard association, he is a mediator and secularist referent in the priority neighborhoods of Nîmes.
He intervenes in particular at the Chemin-Bas d’Avignon. “I lived here for a while, he indicates. My brother-in-law, Mostafa Oumrani, a four-time American boxing world champion, is from here too. I trained with him. It really brought me into the neighborhood.”
Sheyrazad, 20, originally from Mayotte and also living in the neighborhood, has made things easier for her since she formed a pair with him: “This young woman was spotted by another mediator. She herself was a little lost. She accompanied me for nine months and she is currently preparing a CAP prevention/mediation agent.”
Ludovic Zerti is full of praise for her: “She’s a pearl of the social. She has everything for this role. Besides, she is in great demand by many associations. But I would like her to stay with me.”
Always smiling, Sheyrazad has a knack for relaxing relations with the young people she meets. And despite her young age, she manages to make herself respected. Ludovic Zerti believes that with her, interventions are much more effective. In a year and a half, they spotted 480 young people.
Their role is to offer something to each of them. Some were directed to the local Missions, others to training. But it can also be to sports clubs.
So many structures where they can regain confidence and find their way. “We are dealing with a lost public, which does not believe in it. Sometimes it takes time. There is a girl whom it took me a year to get back to second chance school. We are trying to find structures adapted to their own demand.”
The mediator also uses the services of the prefect’s delegates in the neighborhoods to remind them of the values of the republic and provide them with advice. “Young people often come out reinvigorated.”
More broadly, Ludovic Zerti, like the other mediators, works with many partners: the social centers in the territory of Nîmes Métropole, the Feu vert association, the Multiservice Mediation Information Point (Pimms) Valdegour, the Interinstitutional Skills Assessment Center (CIBC), the Unicités association, the neighborhood correspondents of the City of Nîmes, etc.
Transmit the values learned through sport
The former raseteur (see box) also uses his sporting and Camargue cultures in his role. Thus, in Camargue workshops, he will present Camargue and Spanish bullfighting.
With Mario Rodriguez Vals, delegate of the prefect for the western districts, he set up a project: on April 2, many children from the districts were taken to the arenas of Nîmes to discover the Camargue race. In the morning, Ludovic Zerti introduced them to raset and in the afternoon, they attended a race.
An exhibition will also be presented at the André-Malraux social center: plastic works related to the Camargue. Youssef Zekraoui, “the best left-hander of the moment among raseteurs”will be present at the opening with his trophies to talk about it with the public present.
“In boxing or bullfighting, the best sportsmen come out of the neighborhoods because they want to surpass themselves”, states Ludovic Zerti. It is about getting young people interested: “They live near the Camargue, they don’t know. Often, they don’t leave their neighborhood. They can also see the trades that exist around.”
A trip to the Camargue is also planned with Thierry Ferrand, also a former raseteur, “greatest left-hander of all time”and the Saumade manade, financed by Peuple et culture Gard.
For him, boxing and the Camargue race have in common to be a social elevator: “ We manage to tame the danger and make it a strength. Added to this is respect for the opponent and the fact that these two disciplines require a lot of preparation, both physical and mental.” Notions that he tries to transmit to young people who are looking for themselves.
Of course, Ludovic Zerti sometimes encountered aggression. “In that case, I step back and say ‘when you need me, I’ll be there.’ he will end up calling me to tell me that he has something to ask me. I never forget that for them, we are the first link in the social chain.”
Twenty-eight years in the arena
Aged 54, Ludovic Zerti is a former professional raseteur. He faced the bulls for seventeen seasons. But in total, he spent twenty-eight years on the slopes: he was also a turner.
His greatest pride is to have won the Golden Cockade in 1996, “for my father”. Alain, his father, and Rodolph, his brother, were raseteurs before him “but I was running away from that, I was not interested”.
Until the day his brother takes him to see him rase. “I saw Christian Chomel on the track. It was the trigger.”
Ludovic Zerti also paid for himself: he was often injured. “I also won other trophies in front of greats like Chomel and Ferrand. I am friends with them. I am respected by them. This mutual respect, it made me move forward in my profession afterwards. My thing, is not to judge.”
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