The 2026 edition of the Francophonies – Des écritures à la scène festival in Limoges opened with a wide range of performances, each tackling different subjects but all sharing a common theme of resistance. The festival's program began with a performance titled Requiem for a Theatre, which was canceled at the last minute due to the withdrawal of several partners. Festival director Hassane Kassi Kouyaté described the performance as "a creation proposed by an Indian company with ten artists and technicians." The cancellation highlighted the ongoing challenges faced by live theatre, with the festival noting that "we are suffocating theatre" due to budget cuts and evaporating funding. The theme of this edition, "Light the Resistances," focuses on resistance through the liberation of speech on sensitive historical, social, or political subjects. The festival opened on September 23 with performances such as La Terre s’en va sous nos pieds by the French company Basinga and the Lebanese collective Kahraba, as well as KILLT – Les règles du jeu by Olivier Letellier and the Bal chaloupé by the Collectif. These performances extended the theme of commitment, denunciation of violence, and celebration. In Le Silence des tabous, the Congolese playwright Ulrich N’toyo explores the history of slavery through the story of a couple formed by the Antillean Vanessa (played by Sarah Dambre) and the African Kongo (played by Jehf Biyeri). The play features a fictional ritual inspired by traditional ceremonies, directed by Irène Bicep and accompanied by the music of Sylvain Choinier. The performance brings the dead back among the living, addressing the trauma of the past. Another performance, Chemin forgeant by the Martinican author Bernard Gaëtan Lagier, staged by the Congolese Abdon Fortuné Koumbha, features a solo performance by Sorel Boulingui. The actor recounts his journey from childhood to adulthood, reflecting on historical events such as the Vietnam war, the Cuban revolution, and the assassination of Lumumba. The performance is described as an intellectual and political path, an initiatory narrative that spans from the 1970s to the present. In Une Vénus de 7543 ans by the Swiss-Slovak author and director Olivia Csiky Trnka, performed by the Swiss actress Laurence Mayor, a mythological time is intertwined with the narrative of the present through the monologue of an old woman confined to her medicalized bed. The performance addresses the violence and forgetting faced by the elderly in institutions, though it is noted that the piece lacks the necessary depth to offer a singular approach to the experience of elderly people placed in such settings. Other performances at the festival include Chacun pour un deux pour tous by the Cameroonian Edouard Elvis Bvouma, which features a French prefect arrested by the Nazis for refusing to falsify the truth dialoguing with a Senegalese tirailleur. Additionally, Silence by the Congolese author Israel Nzila and the French director Jean-Paul Delore explores the impact of war violence on women.