Experienced documentarians, Sylvie Gilman and Thierry de Lestrade are not used to embarking on a project based on a press article. But, in July 2020, reading in Le Monde the story of Sophie Rollet told by Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme, she appeared to them as “extraordinary”.
In fact, the story of this discreet childminder in the Doubs also deserved to be highlighted on the screen. Because the fight of this mother who became a widow after the death of her husband, a truck driver, following the bursting of a defective tire on the A36 motorway, in July 2014, constitutes an extraordinary adventure.
Her fight, painful, she has been leading for eight years against the American Goodyear, the global tire giant, whose turnover in 2022 amounted to 20.8 billion dollars (18.5 billion euros). ).
A modern version of David versus Goliath? “We were amazed by the journey of this woman who, little by little, is becoming an outstanding investigator,” explains Sylvie Gilman. From simple press articles relating to truck accidents, she will draw threads, and issue hypotheses that implicate a multinational. »
Potential manufacturing problem
Constructed with rigor, having close friends, journalists, lawyers testify, this documentary looks like a thriller. In June 2015, the receipt of the investigation report did not provide any answer on the precise circumstances of the fatal accident.
From there, we follow Sophie Rollet, her eyes still drowned in grief, search her computer every night for reports of truck accidents due to the bursting of similar models of tires. First in France, then in Europe. The list turns out to be long.
It will be necessary to wait until October 2016 and the filing of a complaint for manslaughter so that Sophie Rollet, well helped by the lawyer Philippe Courtois, obtains a first victory, with the obtaining of a judicial expertise. In January 2020, the conclusions of the expert report are formal: the left front tire of the truck driven by Sophie’s husband was “tainted with defects”.
During her investigation, Sophie Rollet discovers an internal document at the multinational, which provides for a trade program for tires raising a potential manufacturing problem. A simple commercial exchange rather than a product recall, which might have caused the panic? And why does Goodyear sign agreements with the families of some victims that include confidentiality clauses?
Sophie Rollet’s long fight was not in vain. “The considerable work of Ms. Rollet has opened the eyes of justice”, underlines a prosecutor in August 2022. It now remains to continue the investigation into these many defective tires, still in circulation. Work on a global scale.
