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On February 13, 2013, Djamel Chaar, a 42-year-old unemployed man, immolated himself in front of a government employment agency in Nantes. This act was quickly seized upon by the media and subject to many online comments. How did such digital mediation affect the (re)construction of this event and the man’s obvious suffering? By tracking 427 online comments, the article emphasizes the forms of causality employed by online newspaper readers. Based on an actantial model involving three figures— the victim, the individual responsible, and the witness—the commentators in our corpus either identify with the victim or attribute responsibility, using various different arguments. The self-immolation of the unemployed man in Nantes is an enigma that leads everyone to question themselves and to be questioned about their identification and responsibilities.