The president’s New Year’s Day speech was four days late that year. The next day, a teacher walks right out of her classroom and goes for a stroll. Then a metro driver leaves her train and comes up to the light of day. A night-club bouncer gets fed up with his role, and even the Prime Minister decides to skip some meetings and stay in bed. In fact, without protests or demands of any kind, all of France gradually stops working and starts dreaming of a kinder, different life that wouldn’t be obsessed with the words work, profitability and efficiency. A sort of quiet revolution, as obvious as re-appropriating meaning. This fictional fable describing a strange epidemic that leads to a new deal, expresses a general sense of frustration.

First one person stops working. Then another. Nobody planned it that way, but gradually, all of France drops out, like a sort of epidemic. No protest marches, no demands… people are just fed up with a system that doesn’t care about them. They decide to take a break, for a cup of coffee or for nothing at all, just to let a little meaning back into their lives.