It only took a few days to move in, but the wall of Clarisse Serre’s office is already filled with frames that tell a part of her. Here, audience sketches. There, the front page of Parisien Magazine where she shares the spotlight with actress Audrey Fleurot. From assize courts to film sets, this 52-year-old criminal lawyer navigates between two worlds that fulfill her. An atypical trajectory reinforced by the decision, taken almost ten years ago, to leave Paris to set up his practice… in Seine-Saint-Denis!
It is with a chapter entitled “Bobigny” that “the lioness of the bar” has chosen to open the book of the same name (Sonatine Editions, 185 pages, 20 euros), in which she looks back on her career, recounts the figures of organized crime that she defends and bluntly delivers her vision of the judicial and prison systems, of #MeToo too.
Tired of the heaviness of several assize trials in Paris, the lawyer then aspired to “simpler” cases. Gérard Zbili, a colleague, suggested Seine-Saint-Denis to him. He himself had just won the Val-de-Marne. “I told him that it was not just the Golden Triangle, and that there was a form of audacity to be asserted by settling in improbable areas”, he recalls, saluting in passing the “fierce” of his younger sister.
“We only meet people in difficulty. You have to cash it”
Clarisse Serre took the plunge and the ring road in 2013. “It was a challenge, she recalls. As a criminal lawyer, there are very few of us in his office. So why occupy Haussmann premises? She first moved to rue de l’Indépendance, a stone’s throw from the courthouse. His new practice is on rue de Champagne. Either way, she sees it as a sign.
“We hear the hens, and I have a small garden where I can have coffee,” she savored when she received us that morning. The calm that reigns there compensates for the harshness of the job: “You only meet people in difficulty. You have to cash it. In her book, the lawyer makes a confession: she can no longer bear to visit her clients in prison.
Sketch by Benoît Peyrucq representing Clarisse Serre before the Bobigny court.
By leaving for Seine-Saint-Denis, the criminal lawyer gained in quality of professional life what she lost in “prestige”: “The natural path is to leave Lille for Paris as Dupond- Moretti. For some files, not being in Paris is a barrier. There is not a lawyer from Bobigny who defends a deputy. Me Zbili confirms. “If a customer judges you by your address or the thickness of your carpet, it’s probably because he doesn’t deserve to be met,” he quips.
Sulphurous customers “who are not tender”
If the political figures ignore him, the thugs jostle in his office. “Being chosen by guys like that, who are not tender, when you are a woman, is a mark of respect”, observes her friend Anne Landois. Among his most “famous” clients are one of the nephews of the Hornec de Montreuil siblings, the members of the Wagram gambling circle or Zaher Zenati, one of the accomplices in Antonio Ferrara’s spectacular escape from Fresnes prison. (Val-de-Marne) in 2003.
Young, she imagined defending “the widow and the orphan”. His passage through the firm of Pierre Haïk and Jacqueline Laffont led him to take another path. But the “vocation” to fight injustice remains. “What drives me is defense,” she said. We defend people, not actions. »
Ten years ago, one of his pleadings in Bobigny convinced screenwriter Anne Landois to hire his services. In search of the red thread of the next season of the series “Gears”, the “showrunner” also sought to reinforce the credibility of the character embodied by Audrey Fleurot, the ambitious lawyer Joséphine Karlsson. “Clarisse is very talkative and very generous,” she describes. Very quickly, I said to myself: This is the consultant I need. »
Lawyer Clarisse Serre notably advised actress Audrey Fleurot (left) for the filming of the hit series “Engrenages”. © Vincent Capman
The criminal lawyer officiates on seasons 5, 6 and 7, tries her hand at figuration and befriends Caroline Proust, the interpreter of commissioner Laure Berthaud. Sold in more than 100 countries, Canal + fiction is considered a reference by judicial and police circles. “Clients told me about it, judges told me about it, lawyers told me about it”, slips the criminal lawyer with a smile.
His career inspired a series soon to be broadcast on Canal +
It should be the same for the next fiction in which she collaborates, always alongside Anne Landois. “We highlight each other”, underlines the latter. In “66.5”, a series whose eight episodes will be broadcast next year on Canal +, a young lawyer played by Alice Isaaz decides to leave the beautiful districts of Paris to return… to Seine-Saint-Denis.
“Clarisse’s career inspired me a lot, recognizes the screenwriter. Going to settle in the suburbs, where your customers are, is something extremely courageous. I worked very closely with Clarisse on this project. I followed her in so many cases, trials… When she dissects a file, nothing escapes her. And when she pleads, she cuts everyone off. »
Bobigny, “a permanent hive”
The filming took place in particular at the Bobigny court during the month of July, a period of judicial holidays. Scenes were shot in the courtrooms and the Salle des Pas Perdus. The offices of the magistrates, inaccessible, have been reconstructed in the studios of Bry-sur-Marne (Val-de-Marne).
“The main actress in this series is the judicial precinct, insists Clarisse Serre. The courts of Versailles or Nanterre were often used as filming locations, but I don’t remember that being the case with Bobigny. Bobigny is like Pompidou, an architecture that you recognize right away. It is also a permanent hive, where you can still meet magistrates even though it is the second largest court in France. “Magistrates in front of which the Lioness has not finished roaring.
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