Rue des fleurs (A Path of Flowers) is a silent film produced in 1962 in the emergency housing camp in Noisy-le-Grand, France, the birthplace of the international movement ATD Fourth World. In 1984, Father Joseph Wresinski recorded a commentary to this film during the making of a further film Au dela de demain (Beyond Tomorrow).
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I am a priest.
It was my bishop who sent me to the emergency housing camp at Noisy-le-Grand on the outskirts of Paris. I arrived there for the first time on the 14th of July 1956.
The families I met there reminded me of my own mother’s poverty. The children who assailed me from the moment I arrived were my brothers, my sister and me, forty years earlier in the Rue St Jacques in Angers.
Since then, the families in that camp have inspired everything I have undertaken for their freedom. They have taken hold of me, they have inhabited me, they have carried me forward, and they have pushed me to found the Movement with them. They gave themselves an identity by establishing a name for themselves, the Fourth World.
On that 14th of July 1956, I entered into adversity. On that day I promised myself that I would reveal these families to the world, get decent homes for them, work for the adults, skills for the young people and schools where the children could finally learn.
That was also the day I set out on the path that I would have to take so that the poorest families would have a recognised and respected place in the world. I would have to enable them to climb the steps of the United Nations, UNESCO, UNICEF, the International Labour Organization, the Council of Europe, and the Vatican, so their voices could be heard.
Thanks to these families, I went to the end of this road. Thanks also to the men and women who came to join us: manual workers, teachers, engineers. They had nothing to offer but their determination to put and end to extreme poverty, their skills, and their hearts. They came empty-handed, without money, power or prestige. With their resolve and courage they built the Volunteer Corps.
In response to the desperate calls we were receiving from all sides, these volunteers have gone out to join people’s suffering around the world. They have become the spearhead of the struggle waged by a poor and dispossessed people for their dignity and freedom.