It all starts with a movie. “Serpico” A classic thriller from the 70s where a young and intense Al Pacino plays an atypical cop with the look of a stoner hippie who denounces police corruption. “A scene particularly marked me as a teenager. The main character explains that he wanted to become a policeman after seeing an agent cut through a crowd of onlookers, with the air of knowing what is happening. It also made me want to be a cop… In order to be at the heart of things, ”says Commander Franck Martins, 57, more than thirty of whom spent with the Lille judicial police. After fantasizing about movie cops, he became one in real life. And in an astonishing turn of events, he also recently became an advisor on TF1’s hit detective series, HPI. The loop is almost complete. But all this was not won in advance. Because when he sees “Serpico”, Franck Martins is a turbulent teenager from Villers-lès-Nancy who is not destined for a future in the area of order and security. Son of an engineer and a manager of a small bookstore, he was kicked out of several high schools. “I formed small bands with friends and we played marioles”, laughs Franck Martins, who keeps a nostalgic memory of his youth in Lorraine: “Without doubt the best years of my life”. But, everything has an end. After a science baccalaureate and a master’s degree in law, he is thinking of joining the army. He does a long service as an officer in Germany. But in the end, it does not stack. He returns to his first love. He wins the competition of police inspector. His first assignment is in Lille where he will spend his entire career. His head is filled with a detective mythology shaped by novels and films. Reality will not disappoint him. “I had a real life of adventures in the police. »
Franck Martins quickly joined the BREC (Regional Intervention and Coordination Brigade). A unit specializing in organized crime. “We intervened in support of other services. It was action police. It was like eating only whipped cream on the cake, ”sums up the Lille cop.
The other side of the coin is that you have to work almost every day. 24 hours a day. “I spent more time with my group than with my family” This ends in a divorce. After about ten years, he slows down a bit and joins the PJ’s criminal squad. Less action but more investigation. “Many cases have traumatized me and left indelible marks on me,” admits the policeman. “I remarried a medical examiner. And when we come back in the evening, we try to transform what we have experienced into something positive, ”explains the cop. Because there are also exciting moments. Like the arrest of the rapist of the Sambre after more than twenty years of tracking (read box). All of that is now behind him. He retired in November last year. But he continues to use his past to coach comedian Mehdi Nebbou and make him a credible Karadec commander in the HPI series. “It’s a feel good series, but if I can make people believe in it and the cops aren’t ridiculous, that’s fine with me! “And it suffices to speak to Franck Martins of the ongoing reform of the judicial police to understand that he remains viscerally attached to his former profession: “It is a crime against the general interest. It’s Maigret we’re murdering! »
“I had a real life of adventures in the police”
The rapist of the Sambre
This is the case that most marked Commander Franck Martins. The Sambre rapist sexually assaulted and raped women for… thirty years. It was rampant on the side of Maubeuge and Belgium, along the Sambre river. He has more than fifty victims to his name. “Forensic science was not what it has become. This complex case has brought to light the dysfunctions of Justice, the police and society as a whole”, summarizes Frank Martins who recovered the file in 1996. And he never abandoned it. Until 2018. Until he stops Dino Scala. When Franck Martins hands him the handcuffs, he lets go in English: “Dino, this is the end” (it’s the end). “It was theatrical but it was a relief for me to tell myself that there would be no more victims,” said the former police officer during the trial which was held in June 2022 and which ended with a 20-year prison sentence.
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