Engrenages first aired in 2005, and subsequently became very popular in a number of countries (we first came across it on SBS in Australia). The title means "gears", and the anglophone equivalent, Spiral, captures none of the idea of complex meshing and interlocking that is conveyed by the French original.

This series has played to great acclaim, and this critic may well be right in maintaining that every new French police series will be judged in future by the standard set by Engrenages.

When you get to the eighth and last season, as we recently did, and find yourself desperately hoping that Laure and Gilou won't die, you realize how successful the writers have been in creating flawed but highly engaging characters...

So there's lots I like about it. We have Paris, in all its many hues -- grand, elegant, tawdry, desperate... We have gripping plots, vividly depicting the various conflicts of interest that mean the different agencies involved in law enforcement do not always work seamlessly together for the greater public good. We have complex, unique, and memorable characters.

And we have French. To hear Juge Robert or Maitre Karlsson expound a barbed legal point in meticulously crafted sentences is a linguistic joy. At the other end of the spectrum, Engrenages is hard to beat as a crash course in street French. (Want a quick test? OK, identify these words for common objects: flic, fric, flingue, fringues, bagnole, caisse, nana, bouffe, baraque, godasse. Didn't get 10/10? OK, definitely go back and do some Engrenages revision.) Not to mention, of course, the sub-course in the French art of swearing... 


Paris, 1988

Alongside all that appreciation, however, I have always wondered about the ethnic picture the series portrays. Not all the malfaiteurs are non-white. But an awful lot are...

How must it feel to watch this if you're from North Africa or sub-Saharan Africa? Would you feel that its realism usefully shines the spotlight on racism in France, and on the often uncomfortable relations between the police and ethnic minorities?

Or would you feel that the portrayals  are contributing to the perpetuation of negative stereotypes?

It's not always easy to make these calls. But is important not to gloss over them. There is a troubling disproportionality between the percentage of foreign and immigrant residents in the general population and their percentage in the prison population, and France's restrictions on collecting ethnic statistics (on the basis of the republican ideal that everyone is a "citizen") make it difficult to determine the exact nature of the links connecting diverging levels of criminal activity, diverging levels of police enforcement, poor relations between the police and certain communities, and socio-economic factors such as poverty and unemployment.

Engrenages is certainly useful in illustrating the way confrontations between the police and local communities can rapidly and alarmingly escalate. If you're willing to sit back and look dispassionately, you can definitely detect faults on both sides.

But the problem is twofold. First, "a majority of French citizens express some degree of dissatisfaction with the presence or level of immigrants... Problems of economic instability and social disorder are often blamed on immigrants and their descendants, with immigrant neighbourhoods viewed as sites of pervasive crime and social disorder..." There is little in Engrenages that will persuade those people to think of immigrants differently.  Second, in series after series, we have grown to know and feel for the police officers, despite their faults. Very rarely are we given the opportunity to similarly know and feel for members of the immigrant community. With just a very few exceptions, these characters do not become rounded personalities, but remain ciphers onto which the audience can project their own ideas of what that role -- usually as victim or crook -- involves).

So... enjoyable, very enjoyable even. A good discussion-starter -- but only for those prepared to have discussions. Possibly dangerous, therefore...



Very, very different, but equally thought-provoking was a one-season, six-part series  directed by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade.  It's called Laetitia, after the young woman it features, who was murdered  in 2011 near Pornic, Brittany.

The series is based on a 2016 book by Ivan Jablonka, the title of which translates as "Laetitia or the End of Men". This pretty much sums up the tale. Awful though her murder is, it turns out to be just the culmination of a life that has been dominated by violent men.

Laetitia and her twin sister, Jessica, were taken away from their parents after their father was sent to prison for abusing their mother (who subsequently never really recovers her mental equilibrium). The father re-emerges in their lives from time to time, but his instability means he is never able to look after them responsibly, and always appears only inches from violence. The girls are placed with the Patrons, a foster-couple, the male half of whom also turns out to be an abuser, and has preyed on Laetitia's twin sister, a couple of their friends, and possibly -- although we don't know this for sure -- Laetitia herself.

Meilhon, the murderer, has a history of violence, and has only just been released after serving time. He does not particularly have the profile of a sex offender, but as far as he is concerned, women are there to fulfil his wishes. If they don't, violence is the immediate answer.

Then there was the political machismo. The case drew the attention of President Nicolas Sarkozy, ever-ready to boost the tough-on-crime image that he hoped would be a vote-winner in the following year's elections. His interference in an ongoing investigation, together with his blistering criticism of the judiciary, brought judges and lawyers out on the streets in unprecedented numbers, very ready to point out the underfunding that had made their work next to impossible.

The way Jablonka sees it, Meilhon, Patron, and Sarkozy are all tarred with the same brush. They are all, in their different ways, using violence to get what they want.


Brittany 1990-91





The aim of both the book and the series was to redirect attention away from the headline-grabbing men and back onto Laetitia. De Lestrade: "Laetitia's disappearance became the Tony Meilhon case. It pretty much only became the Laetitia case with the publication of Ivan Jablonka's book. That was the goal: to no longer reduce Laetitia to her death, but to rediscover her life... Laetitia and her sister, before being victims, are heroines of daily life. When you look at Laetitia's trajectory, her childhood, and how far she has come, you can't help but admire her."

I thought this was a very well-constructed series, judicious in the amount of actual violence it portrays, and clever in the way it builds suspense, even though the perpetrator is identified fairly early on.

And it shines a very effective spotlight on the nexus between sexual crime and domestic violence.

De Lestrade comments that during his time at law school, he studied the functioning of the Assize Court in Douai, and was struck by the fact that 70% of the cases had to do with sexual crimes -- "and yet, at that time, it is estimated that only one out of fifteen complaints was filed". (You wonder how much has changed. Just the other day, I saw this: "According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, one in five Australian women and one in 20 men have experienced sexual assault since the age of 15. Most assaults occur in private spaces, and most are against women by a man known to them. Yet, almost nine in ten women -- 87% -- do not contact the police.")





I guess my only reservation was one I've registered before with regard to dramatizing real cases: What do the families think, and how much does it matter what they think?

Initially, it seems, there was pushback from some of the relatives, who mounted a petition to have it stopped. Further consultation seemed to smooth things over, although it was decided that the series would be filmed in the Baie de Somme area and Dunkirk, rather than Pornic. Reportedly, Jessica (who has changed her name, and no longer lives in Pornic) did not want to watch the final product, but her aunt and uncle felt it helped them to understand what had happened.

Jean-Xavier de Lestrade says he was primarily concerned to show what the story of Laetitia says about society and human beings. I think he succeeded. Next time you hear any right-wingers mouthing off about family values, get them to watch this...