"For years, I've hovered around this event in my life. To read in a novel an account of an abortion plunges me into a shock without images or thoughts, as if the words changed instantaneously into a violent sensation. In the same way, to hear by chance "La Javanaise", "J'ai la mémoire qui flanche", or any of the songs which accompanied me during this time, absolutely destroys me."

With Jules Vallès' Trilogy, "L'enfant, Le bachelier, L'insurgé" ("The child, The high school graduate, The rebel"), we began a "thinking workshop" with teenagers and adults on how thought is learned, on how a person is trained.
Together, we questioned the history of the life - childhood, adolescence and maturity - of Jules Vallès' hero, Jacques Vingtras.
The teenagers, both girls and boys, immediately identified with Vingtras, with his exemplary life full of rebellion and commitment, and in his words found an echo of their own preoccupations.
The "Lettres à Jules", écrits d'élèves, ("Letters to Jules", pupils' writing), are a magnificent expression of this.
More than 300 performances of the Trilogy have been presented to more than 60,000 people.

To continue our artistic work and our cycle of reflection and research on the "learning years", we have now chosen the texts of Annie Ernaux, as they deal with the profound intimacy of a woman in conflict with her social and family origins. They also stand out as a truly political word recalling the necessity of rebellion and commitment for one's self-respect, and for the respect of one's convictions and of one's life choices.

First of all, we staged L'événement (based on extracts from three texts, Les Armoires vides, Ce qu'ils disent ou rien and L'événement), which re-tells an illegal abortion lived in solitude and abandonment.
At this time of dramatically increasing violence, sexism, insults, discrimination and exclusion towards young girls and women, we felt it was right to make the voice of this woman heard as she retraces her struggle for the respect of her person and her rights.
With La femme gelée, we enter "the second cycle of the learning years".
Our "heroine" is no longer a young girl but a young woman, who, in learning the "normal role" of a woman, loses herself and gives her up through love.

In this journey through the work of Annie Ernaux, it is certainly not a question of re-launching the battle of the sexes. This woman does not have accounts to settle with men, but with society.
Rather, it consists of inviting young girls and young people to think together and to construct less stereotyped and more respectful relationships, where both women and men can fulfil their potential.