The JDD. Émile, Le Grêlé, Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès: it’s undeniable, the French are passionate about news stories. What does this appetite for these unique and violent stories say about us?
Alain Bauer. It is the history of humanity that unfolds, because death is part of life. Without “news stories”, the ancient theater, the opera, the novel, the cinema, the television, the local daily newspaper or the JDD would be very empty. From Forum announcements or ancient posters, people commented on crime and its repression. The Troppmann Affair in 1869 led to the creation of a daily serial that fascinated public opinion. Like the Calas affair, the poison affair or the Queen’s necklace. The extraordinary attracts opinion.
Are criminal cases fascinating because they reflect the dark side of the human soul?
Without a doubt. The risk of acting out for the animal that lies dormant in humans incites interest, horror, passion.
Most of the news items, let us say it, are rarely reported, or only by the local press. However, some “emerge” to the point of taking on a social dimension. How to explain this phenomenon ?
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Often because a child is involved. Sometimes because of the scale of the number of victims. Or the spectacular side of crime. The absence of other events can also explain a temporary craze. When it becomes lasting, the springs of this fascination require a real enigma, a disappearance, an event which goes beyond the initial action.
Whether you are powerful or miserable, nothing protects you from tragedy. Isn’t it precisely the social transgression that causes the most emotion or disapproval?
I don’t think this is decisive. On the contrary, the drama of the powerful attracts more public opinion for contradictory and not always empathetic reasons. Then, the period of the investigation, the revelations about the private lives of the victims (we can remember the tragedy of the Empain affair), build dark legends which endure.
“The drama of the powerful attracts opinion for contradictory and not always empathetic reasons”
What can we say about the fascination no longer for the news item itself, but for the author of the crimes. Isn’t this kind of sacralization of criminals dangerous?
Without a doubt, but Robin Hood syndrome often leads to confusing criminal and hero, terrorist and resistance fighter, mythification and mystification. It is more difficult to depict victims, particularly in fiction, and this often replaces reality in the collective imagination.
Big cases also reveal great lawyers. How do they contribute to this fascination with news items?
Less than you think. We remember little about Maitre de Moro-Giafferri and much more about Robert Badinter. Beyond their clients, we remember the lawyers of great causes.
No witnesses. No clues. No plausibility either between the place and time of the tragedy. Worse, the assassin seems to have vanished… Does the perfect crime exist?
Without a doubt. Temporarily, no doubt. Thousands of people disappear every year without a trace. Very few bodies were found. There is still too little identification of “under X”. And therefore the probability of unrecorded excess mortality is more probable than the reverse. SO….
*Alain Bauer is professor of criminology at the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts (Cnam), associate professor at Fudan University in Shanghai and senior research fellow within the Center of Terrorism at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. He has published around sixty works on issues of security, crime and terrorism, including At the end of the investigation – Season 2. The biggest criminal cases scrutinized published by First.
“At the end of the investigation. Season 2. The biggest criminal cases scrutinized”, Alain Bauer and Marie Drucker, First Éditions, March 2024, 336 pages, 19.95 euros.
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