A commissioner from the Paris region confesses: the end of the adventures of Captain Laure Berthaud – promoted to commander over the seasons – and her team from the 2nd DPJ (judicial police district) will create a hole
in the world of French fiction. This is the most realistic series about the police that has ever existed
, she sums up.
On screen since December 2005 and exported to over 100 countries, Gears
revolutionized the televisual thriller, in a universe already saturated with often disappointing productions, by associating in the writing a professional screenwriter and a co-screenwriter from the police seraglio.
Not without difficulty, at least in the beginning. The first screenwriters, who were introduced to me, had a little trouble getting advice from a real policeman. It’s a bit like artist syndrome, like + I have a friend at LAC, he explained to me +
, rewinds Eric de Barahir *, divisional commissioner, who participated in the writing of seasons 2 to 4.
The official, more than 20 years of judicial police on the clock, was inspired true stories lived
, who have been mixed, processed, adapted
, such as the infiltration of a network of drug traffickers or the investigation of ultra-left activists with terrorist tendencies.
The crimes of Butcher of La Villette
, red thread of season 3, are also drawn in part from those of Jacques Rançon, the Perpignan station killer
, who raped and mutilated two young women in the 1990s.
The last season addresses the issue of Moroccan unaccompanied minors, often drugged with Rivotril – an anti-epileptic drug – who roam the Parisian district of Goutte d’Or and live on petty theft under the control of receivers.
« Image positive »
Cumbersome procedure, tensions with lawyers, competition between services, fool’s games with informants, balance of power with magistrates: it’s the only series where the police recognize each other, where they can tell their relatives + that’s my job, that’s what I do +
, explains Eric de Barahir.
We all know a Laure Berthaud, her head in the handlebars, for whom life is work, who gives everything and never picks up
, confides a Parisian commissioner. The character of Gilou
, a police officer with a chaotic private life who ends up in prison for crossing the red line, reminds him, to a certain extent, of those really nice guys we want to save when they get out of hand
.
The ultra-realism of the series, which reveals many techniques of investigation or surveillance, can sometimes make you tick in the police ranks. When we show the sound system of a visiting room, it can upset some cops
, slips an investigator.
We are no longer in Hercule Poirot and that also pleases the cops for that
, tempers a young PJ commissioner, bottle-fed
to Gears even before putting on the uniform. On the other hand, the constraints of fiction sometimes impose some deviations from reality. The characters go through an accumulation of incredible things and crazy investigations that few cops will experience in their careers
, underlines the thirty-year-old commissioner.
The proximity, conflictual or quasi-filial, of the trio formed by Captain Berthaud, the experienced judge Roban and the ambitious lawyer Joséphine Karlsson, serves the intrigue but in truth, justice is a completely dehumanized machine
, adds another, stationed in Seine-Saint-Denis.
It is also difficult to escape the time compression imposed by the breathless rhythm of a series. In a fiction, we will not wait three weeks to have the results of a genetic fingerprint
, concedes Eric de Barahir.
It’s a bit of a fantasy because the scenario demands it, otherwise it would be shotgun
, forgive the commissioner of the Paris region. Above all, she appreciates, we see a modern, rejuvenated, feminized font with a little touch of diversity. It gives a positive image
.
– .
