This Friday, November 1, the Max platform is putting online the fourth – and final – episode ofA devoted friendhis first particularly successful French series. Headlining, the heroine ofAntoinette in the Cevennes Laure Calamy plays Chris, a young woman who poses as a victim of the November 13 attacks, and even manages to play a central role in Life for Paris, the association created after these terrible events. The latter is inspired by Florence, aka “Flo Kitty”, whose true story hit the headlines and is told in the book The Mythomaniac of the Bataclanby Alexandre Kauffmann. Questioned by Télé-Loisirs, the journalist explained to us how he came to be interested in his career.
“There were around thirty false victims of November 13” confides the author of “La mythomane du Bataclan”, the book which inspired A Devoted Friend with Laure Calamy
“It’s my personal story” the latter explains to us the genesis of his book. “My family has been victims of acts of terrorism. My father was kidnapped in Lebanon from 1985 to 1988 when I was young by Hezbollah forces. At that time, there was no support system in France for victims of terrorism. My mother then met Françoise Rudetzki, the founder of SOS ATTACKS, who has become a leading figure in the defense of victims of terrorism in France. It is thanks to her that we have the best support system for victims of terrorism in France. She became a family friend. In 2020 she came and we were discussing false victims. I was surprised to know there were so many“. During this conversation, Alexandre Kauffman then made a chilling discovery: “On November 13 alone, there were around thirty, including around twenty legally recorded, and around ten who were not compensated, therefore not worried!“
“We can take a package of 30,000 euros which exempts us from any expertise”
Françoise Rudetzki then tells him about two cases in particular: “First that of a couple of Serbian origin who claimed to be at the Stade de France on November 13, and who took a package through the FGTI [Le fond de garantie des victimes, ndlr]. We can take a package of 30,000 euros which exempts us from any expertise” explains Alexandre Kauffmann. “They took this crime and they showed up in Nice eight months later. They were caught, and he received the heaviest sentence of the false victims of terrorism in France. That caught my attention. The second case of which she spoke to me, he is a real victim of the RER B attack. He considered himself poorly compensated for this attack, so he falsely claimed to be at Petit Cambodge on the evening of November 13 in compensation for that. So, it is a real victim who subsequently appears to be a false victim“.
A devoted friend: “Florence had an electronic bracelet when she joined Life for Paris” explains Alexandre Kauffmann
The founder of SOS attacks then advised him to get closer to the members of Life for Paris, which Alexandre Kauffmann did. “They told me that there had been six false victims within their association, four of whom had been brought to justice.” he says. “Among these six, there is Florence [la fameuse “Mythomane du Bataclan, ndlr] who herself flushed out the association’s first false victim, who claimed that her best friend had died at the Bataclan. She also had an electronic bracelet when she joined the association, because she had already been convicted of other old scams. I also learned that thanks to her electronic puppets, she had managed to establish a relationship with a real victim of the Bataclan attacks. I found it mind-blowing. And from there, I began to trace his journey“… A journey told in The mythomaniac of the Bataclan and that Max’s subscribers therefore discovered in A devoted friend.
