L'esperluette/Marshall Rosenberg, Bordeaux 2004/en

[ 🇫🇷 En français ]

Bertrand Reynaud at Camera 1

History of Marshall Rosenberg’s video in Bordeaux (2004)

In 2004, Didier, Nathalie and Dieudonné were members of the Nonviolent Communication practice group in Bordeaux.

They came up with a rather crazy idea: to invite Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of Non-Violent Communication (NVC), to give a talk in Bordeaux. The idea had come to Didier following a conversation with Christophe de La Chaise, director of CECA and founder of the Université Hommes-Entreprises, who wanted to invite a particularly famous person that year. He chose Marshall Rosenberg.

Logo of the association Co-libri, organiser of the conference

Logo of the association L'esperluette: libres & ensemble, responsible for distributing the video

Christophe de La Chaise believes he can attract around 50 people through his network for a conference to be held on the afternoon of 1 July 2004 in the beautiful 300-seat amphitheatre of the Cité Mondiale du Vin. He is counting on our volunteers and our knowledge of the local NVC network to fill the remaining 250 seats.

Given Marshall Rosenberg’s reputation, we feel confident enough to organise a second conference that very evening, at the same venue. We are ready to take on this new challenge and thus bear the financial risk associated, this time, with the complete management of ticket sales for another conference of 300 people!

To do this, we needed a local association, as the national NVC association (the ACNV) did not respond to our calls to organise this second conference. So, in 2004, the three of us set up the association Co-libri, later renamed L'esperluette.

Among those who could have helped us bring this second invitation to the speaker’s attention, most advised against inviting him, to protect his health given his already packed schedule! Godfrey Spencer (a NVC trainer and one of its leading French-speaking interpreters) considered Marshall quite capable of deciding for himself whether his condition was compatible with this invitation.

Marshall Rosenberg accepted immediately, and the evening conference was organised with the local NVC network of the time.

We had the idea of filming the event. As we had limited financial resources, we looked among our friends and acquaintances to see who might be able to help us do this on a voluntary basis. Quite quickly, we secured the agreement of Bertrand Reynaud, a professional cameraman. Fate certainly has a sense of humour! A synchronicity? During our first meeting with him, whilst scouting the venue for the upcoming evening lecture, Bertrand received a call from another professional cameraman friend. This colleague contacted him to ask him to film, this time for a fee, the… afternoon lecture!

On the day of the two conferences, an unexpected result for us: both professional cameramen decided to stay on voluntarily that very evening and to gift us the second shoot, using their professional equipment :)

Inspired by this outpouring of generosity, Dieudonné learnt to use the software needed for video editing and creating a DVD.

In late 2004, during a meeting in Lausanne on Restorative Circles, Nathalie and Dieudonné met up again with Marshall Rosenberg, Dominic Barter and Anne Bourrit (a key figure in the French-speaking NVC network), and gave each of them a copy of this DVD. On this occasion, we expressed our wish that the film be distributed in the same spirit of generosity that had characterised its creation. We therefore requested that the film be protected by a copyleft licence rather than by copyright. This was followed by lengthy discussions, parts of which have been transcribed on these pages:

• Video of a lecture by Marshall Rosenberg under a copyleft licence and Related articles:
  • Choice of licence
  • (en) en:User talk:Dieudo #Copyleft CNVC, May 2006
  • Proposal to the CNVC Board: copyleft attitude, Sept 2006 (June 2006 in original version)
  • Francophone Regional Circle/12–14 Sep 2008 #Copyleft DVD, Sept 2008

The DVD, the result of patient learning, remains unused, just like the video, which remained confidential for a long time. As our requests have come to nothing, we remain in limbo. Only a few viewings, inevitably private, cause the participants to sigh each time: “What a shame that this video cannot be shown to more people”. Dominic Barter even said of it, “It’s the best video of Marshall I’ve ever seen!”

Today, in February 2026, we are moved by further outpourings of generosity and by the ever-urgent requests from CNV participants who are aware of this video’s existence.

The L’esperluette collegiate, of which Dieudonné and Nathalie are still members, wishes to take the risk of sharing this lecture without waiting any longer. It has already been nearly 22 years since the film was made! We are therefore making it available here, under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.

We hope you see this initiative as a gift. It was in this spirit, already present in 2004, that it came into being. If this is not the case for you, please let us know. We are always keen to discuss the subject.

Enjoy exploring!

Images from the DVD released in 2004

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Introductory visuals for the video broadcast in 2026

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Credits

Speaker : Marshall Rosenberg

Interpreters : Godfrey Spencer and Anne Bourrit

Organisers of the conference: Didier Guthmann, Nathalie & Dieudonné Dard (through the association Co-libri), with the support of Marise Sbrissa and numerous participants in the local self-managed NVC practice group

CNV International Association: CNVC

French Association for NVC: ACNV, represented by Thierry Mourman during the introductory speeches

Professional cameramen : Bertrand Reynaud and Daniel Piquemal

Video production: Dieudonné Dard

Video distribution: the members of the association’s collective L'esperluette, libres & ensemble, under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.

Financial support and written feedback

Support this initiative financially

1. L'esperluette/Dons
2. ACNV: cnvfrance.fr/dons/
3. CNVC: cnvc.org/fr/donate

Provide written feedback

1. Add a comment via the discussion tab on this page
2. Write a comment on the related article in the Framavox group: [FR] https://framavox.org/d/AT6WD0Jo/marshall-rosenberg-bordeaux-2004
3. Write a comment in the related article on Dieudonné’s Substack: https://dieudonnedard.substack.com/p/marshall-rosenberg-bordeaux-2004

Related pages

• Marshall Rosenberg and restorative justice

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