Loosely inspired by a real event, Jérôme Salle’s feature film tells the story of Mathieu Roussel (Gilles Lellouche), a Frenchman unjustly detained in Russia. Watch this Sunday at 9:10 p.m. on France 2.
The real adventure which gave rise to the scenario of “Kompromat”, released in 2022, was experienced by Yoann Barbereau. The story of this French official, which he reported in his book “In the Jails of Siberia”, was well worth bringing to the screen as it is incredible.
Tropism towards the East
Yoann Barbereau grew up far from Siberia, near Nantes. After studying philosophy, in 2003 he was overtaken by what he described as “tropism towards the East” and moved to Russia at the age of 25. There, he helped found the French Alliance of Rostov-on-Don, whose primary goal was to play a key role in promoting the French language and culture in the southern region of Russia. Yoann Barbereau’s role is, among other things, to organize literary and artistic meetings. In 2011, he was transferred, again for the Alliance Française, to Irkutsk, in Siberia, and led a peaceful existence there with his wife and daughter for four years.
The kompromat storm
On February 11, 2015, armed men burst into his home and very violently took him away in front of his 5-year-old daughter. They are agents of the FSB, the Russian intelligence service, successor to the KGB. “Firstly, I am accused of disseminating child pornography images and the rape of my own daughter,” he explains to the media Brut. “My computer was actually tampered with and used to post criminal images.” Yoann is the victim of what we call a kompromat, a Russian term for a compromising case involving a public figure (disturbing for the authorities). “Not a single witness, the elements brought together formed a construction that was sometimes crazy, sometimes eccentric,” explains Yoann in his book. The Frenchman was incarcerated for 71 days. After a three-week stint in a psychiatric hospital, he was finally placed under house arrest.
Jamesbondian escape
In the grip of psychological despondency, Yoann makes the decision to escape. “I place aluminum foil around my electronic bracelet, which has the effect of cutting the signal and, normally, triggering the arrival of guards, but no one comes. I understand that in the event of an escape, I can have a good lead over my pursuers.” Yoann sets out, he leaves his phone in a bus heading to Mongolia and leaves for Moscow where he finds refuge at the French embassy. But the diplomats fear an incident, the situation is complicated and the place becomes, for Yoann, a golden prison. He decides to flee a second time and prepares like a soldier, studying satellite maps for months. He ends up spotting a possible access point to cross the border into Estonia. Helped by a Russian friend, he will succeed. On November 8, 2017, Yoann Barbereau returned to French soil.
Why so much hatred?
One question remains: why was the FSB so angry with him? For Yoann, it is a combination of factors. “They probably thought that I was a French intelligence officer, but I don’t think that’s the definitive explanation,” he said on France 3. “At the time, France was coming to refuse to sell ships to Russia, I was close to an opposition mayor and appeared with a pro-democracy Russian minority and, moreover, in the midst of a separation from my Russian wife. I think that all this gave rise to the idea in someone at the FSB: “We’re going to get this Frenchman”…”
