One of the largest French criminal affairs of the 21st century always irresoline. Fourteen years after the shock of the discovery of the five -time murder in Nantes, Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès remains not found and unleashed passions. The recent announcements of the influencer Aqababe claiming to have found “XDDL”, – denied by justice – reveal the incredible fascination of the public for these crimes and for the complex personality of suspect number 1.
But it is to another investigation that Doctor Daniel Zagury, psychiatrist of French hospitals, specialist in psychopathology and legal psychiatry and head of service at the Bois-de-Bondy, Famous for his participation in the investigation of many criminal cases, Daniel Zagury, honorary expert near the Paris Court of Appeal, published this Friday, May 9 Public enigma n ° 1. Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès (Seuil, collection “Traverse”, 160 pages, 17.50 euros).
A work which, according to the author, could have been called “in the head of the killer”, and in which the expert is interested in “psychic work of the crime”. Daniel Zagury, who did not meet Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, delivers an “expert reflection that is not ashamed of his original practices and the experience he has drawn from it […] », Based in particular on the many written traces that the father of the family left. In his book, the psychiatrist unveils several “guiding son” to try to explain, perhaps, how a “Monsieur Tout-le-Monde” can become a “Mister Tout-le-Monster”. Interview.
What would the “psychic work of the crime” have made by Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès?
This consists of the slow development of the crime which will, in the case of Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, of the emergence of the first suicidal idea until the passage to the act of killing all his family. Gradually, this man will come to the idea that he can only commit suicide with those whom he most loves in the world, and that they will be together for eternity, and that it must remain secret.
But it takes meaning to this whole business. This meaning, he will look for him in the idea of sacrifice. That is to say that, for him, he will not massacre his own but to offer them in a sublime way to God. The psychic work of crime is all that. This is how to resolve this equation to make crime comfortable.
The author of the crime would not kill by hatred, but by a kind of “sacrificial logic”?
Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès does not take himself for an exterminating angel. He does not take himself either for God. But he will convince himself that God does not refuse sacrifices. He thinks everyone will find themselves in paradise, and that crime is just a bad time to pass. It makes crime easier. When he has made his decision, he has no doubt and his arm will not stop, because he thinks it is right and well.
You come back to the history and particular family of this man, whose mother “prevented him from having her own destiny, and to this father who had abandoned his family”. On how he has evolved, with what values, until the occurrence of the fivefold murder …
Explaining your family life is a major element in the understanding of Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès. Until 35 years old, he believed in the mystical prophecies of his mother, especially that he was predestined to be a survivor of the Apocalypse. To be predestined is to be deprived of your own destiny. This mother, he loved it too much to get out. His father, he loved him too much to blame him for abandoning his family to go to Africa. Psychically, Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès has never been autonomous, neither of his mother, nor his father.
-What do you mean when you qualify Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès as “psychically compartmentalized man”?
Another guiding thread to understand this man is compartmentalization. This guy is smiling while his life as a couple is a disaster. The evening he is supposed to have killed his whole family and he is on the road to suicide, he makes little “hello”, takes a well -watered rib steak. This particular ability to compartmentalizing is an essential characteristic to understand your psychology.
By analyzing the man, his history, his family, you underline the absence of an obvious mobile for an act as radical …
What fascinates in the Dupont de Ligonnès affair is that it is a story with stories: there is the religious dimension, the psychiatric dimension, the aristocratic dimension, economic and social decline … The stories are added to each other and complement each other. This is why only one theory cannot account for all reality. It is all of these theories that can help better understand.
The murders attributed to Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès are excruciating. But you find out that no one hates it, because we have given it « a vacant place »that « of the custodian of the key to the mysteries ». What do you mean ?
I realized, by writing this book, how a legend has become a legend, a myth in our society. The English have Jack the Ripper, we have Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès. Everyone has a theory about him. How to understand the incredible embrace for this poor Guy Joao *, or the incredible success of the number of Society devoted to Dupont de Ligonnès [à l’été 2020]or the hundreds of thousands of followers earned by the influencer Aqababe in a few days? This is because we expect Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès.
It is not the expectation of a lover, nor that of a uryss returning after a long journey, of the prodigal son, the resurrection of Christ, of the return of Martin War … But that’s all at the same time. Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, we see him in Japan, Italy, the United States, Thailand. We see it everywhere because it is nowhere, and it occupies an incredible place in the collective unconscious. It says more about us than on him …
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What does that say about us?
The expectation is a universal posture of the one that is turned towards something miraculous, magic, rather than the banal and sordid reality.
* On October 19, 2019, Glasgow police in Scotland think they have identified Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès. It is actually Guy Joao, a simple retiree.
