Un Tuesday like any other. This June 18, it’s routine at the workshop of the General Secretariat for the Administration of the Ministry of the Interior (SGAMI), a somewhat pompous title to designate a state automobile garage, located north of Montélimar. It is quite simply here that police and gendarmerie cars are maintained. It’s 11 a.m. Spring warmth bathes the green sheet metal building, located on the edge of a park. The coffee break is over, the employees have just returned to work. One has gone for a test drive, the other has his nose in an engine, the third is fine-tuning a body, while Gilles Obigand, the department head, takes care of the paperwork in his glass office. It’s then that Francine, the only woman on the team, walks through his door and rushes at him with a furious look, a box cutter in her hand…
Reserved, she stood aside
Francine, a petite 56-year-old brunette with a rather masculine appearance, is a bit like the black sheep of the department. Not because she works poorly, but because she is not very sociable. Very reserved, always apart from others, the fifty-year-old never talks about her life. From what little his colleagues know about it, there are good reasons for this. Francine has just suffered two tragic deaths in close succession. First that of his brother, a cycling enthusiast, struck down by a heart attack while climbing Mont Ventoux. Then that of his sister-in-law, who died a few months later from devastating cancer. The couple leaves two orphans.
Francine, who was already not very friendly, has since walled herself in grief. Still staying with her old mother, she hardly goes out anymore, except to take care of the old shack that she has just bought in Ardèche, and the renovation of which is causing her a lot of worry. We can see the weight of all these misfortunes weighing on his shoulders. But there is something else. Formerly, Francine was called Francis. It’s been a few years now since she changed gender. Not completely a success, as we feel bad about ourselves. However, it is not this singularity that explains his isolation at work. His colleagues, who were rather benevolent, never gave him the slightest thought. No, she’s the one who stays in the background, always with headphones on to cut herself off from the world, always having lunch in her corner. An attitude that has the gift of annoying Gilles Obigand.
However, with this boss the atmosphere had never been so good
At 51, the crew-cut department head is an extroverted man who enjoys life to the fullest. Married to a nurse, father of two grown children, he plays the trumpet and drums, never misses a football match and loves entertaining. Since he took the helm of SGAMI in 2022, the atmosphere has never been so good. On several occasions, he asked Francine to make an effort to integrate better. Without success. But he lacks several elements to understand the behavior of his subordinate. He is unaware that the fifty-year-old is closely monitored by a psychologist, especially since she attempted suicide in 2022 by diverting the exhaust gases from her car into the passenger compartment. It took a few breaths before she achieved her goals…
He remains stunned when she approaches with a demented eye
Gilles Obigand doesn’t even guess the mountain of medications she ingests every day. Also, he does not have all the cards to analyze the situation, when this Tuesday, June 18, Francine arrives in his office with this cutter in hand.
A little stunned, he doesn’t make a move as she approaches him, her eyes wild. What followed was incredibly violent. With a determined impulse, the furious madwoman throws herself at him and cuts his carotid artery. When the mechanic with his nose in his engine stands up, he can hardly believe what he sees. Gilles is standing in the doorway of his office, his throat open, his expression hallucinated, his mouth distorted by a silent cry. He staggers a few steps, then collapses on the cement floor. Francine, her red cutter still in her hand, then comes and stands directly above him, and spits in his face:
– It’s like that !
When help arrived, it was already too late. Gilles Obigand has died. Francine, who did not even try to flee, was arrested without incident. When asked why she committed this barbarity, she is incapable of providing an answer. The only certainty: things are not going well at all behind his dilated pupils. The doctor also concludes that she is not in a condition to be placed in police custody, and has her committed to a psychiatric ward.
A madness that remains incomprehensible
Last weekend, an investigator told us that he was still looking for the beginning of a clue to explain this merciless killing. Did Francine feel stigmatized because of her sex change? Apparently not. Was she erotically fixated on her boss? Did he reject her advances? The other members of the team can’t believe it. Did he refuse him a day off, or some other equivalent trifle? Not really the boss type, always accommodating. But what else? Should we see this assassination as pure and simple madness?
Waiting for answers that may not come, at the time of our closure, the widow and two older sons of Gilles Obigand remained walled in incomprehension. Francine, who remains presumed innocent, was still in hospital, under surveillance. It will be up to the experts to decide on his criminal future.
An investigation by Mathieu Fourquet.
