« ÇIt's been flashing all over the place for weeks. » On Friday November 13, 2015, visiting the Fleury-Mérogis remand center to question a repentant Islamist, Lucie Kessler (Fleur Geffrier, seen in Drops of God), commander at the DGSI (General Directorate of Internal Security), is concerned about the growing terrorist threat on French territory.
Thousands of kilometers away, in Turkey, DGSE analyst Malika Choukri (Rachida Brakni) tries to extract the location of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, an actively wanted jihadist, from a reluctant prisoner: “When you find him, he will be too late”… It is with this dark warning that the series begins The Spies of Terror, of which M6 is broadcasting the first two episodes this Tuesday, November 12.
ALSO READ “A devoted friend”: what is the mini-series on the Bataclan mythomaniac worth? Based on the eponymous investigative book (published in 2018 by Harper Collins France) by Mathieu Suc, journalist specializing in terrorism issues at Mediapart, this fascinating mini-series in four parts relates day after day, and month after month, the hunt of those responsible for the Parisian attacks carried out by the French intelligence services in 2015 and 2016. A breathtaking race against time to prevent them from doing it again and a remarkable dive of realism into an opaque world, immersed alongside agents entirely devoted to their priesthood, often at the sacrifice of their private lives.
At the heart of the French secret service reactor
It was by reading an article by Mathieu Suc that Franck Philippon, the creator of the series saw “the promise of a very strong fiction”: “It was said there that following November 13, the DGSE had established a list of some target names. After two years, all these targets had been housed and eliminated, he explains. I then read The Spies of Terror and felt that there was material there for a story that was both captivating and cathartic, carrying the emotions that have gone through us all and telling of the need to overcome them in order to act and avoid further strikes. »
But if the journalist's investigation details the functioning of the secret services of the Islamic State from the inside, presenting its divisions (counter-espionage, external operations office, commandos, etc.), its methods and the journey of its protagonists, the series reverses the focal point to adopt that of the agents of the DGSE and the DGSI: “In fiction, the story is based on empathy and identification. It was therefore impossible to adapt the book from the point of view of the terrorists,” explains Emmanuel Daucé, the producer of this thriller at Terra Media Fiction.
ALSO READ “November” on France 2: diving into the heart of anti-terrorismThe authors therefore imagined Lucie, Malika, or even Vincent Morin (Vincent Elbaz), major at the Lille branch of internal security, as so many positive heroes to carry the plot: “Beyond retracing the investigation, one of the objectives was to reach out to the viewer to take them through the looking glass and show them the work of these men and women behind the scenes to pay tribute to their total commitment,” explains Franck Philippon.
Fictitious, these figures nonetheless remain the reflection of authentic spies, whom Mathieu Suc was able to meet for the needs of his work. Or by several “sources” from the DGSI, from which the character of Saïd (Rachid Guellaz), alias “Minotaur”, is inspired. The journalist actually participated in the writing workshops, alongside the screenwriters (including Laurent Guillaume, a former cop) and an ex-agent, ensuring the story's impressive precision.
The obsession with realism
A concern for realism also assumed by the director Rodolphe Tissot (The Last Wave, What Pauline doesn't tell you), which combines sobriety and efficiency in its staging: “We tell a true story. What was important to me was therefore to show things as they happened, not to make them into cinema scenes, he insists, claiming the American series as a reference.The Looming Towers. We had access to numerous reports, including that of the arrest of Salah Abdeslam (one of the men of the November 13 commando, Editor's note). It describes a red carpet with pizza boxes at the bottom of a cellar. Well, that's exactly what we shot. »
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To Discover
Kangaroo of the day
Answer
Very documented, the series unfolds a dense plot, at an intense pace. The other side of the coin: we can sometimes feel overwhelmed by the amount of information provided on this codified universe – specific terms, names of terrorists, acronyms, etc. – especially in the first episode, particularly dense. Franck Philippon recognizes this: “The challenge was to succeed in translating the complexity of the investigation, without betraying it, while making the story understandable. »
The crest line is fine but the series ultimately manages to find the right balance to captivate the viewer. In apnea, he cannot get away from this asphyxiating pursuit, between closed-door meetings, departmental conflicts, shadowing, digital infiltrations, etc., which in passing allow us to glimpse the shaken intimacy of the agents of the anti-terrorist fight. The tension is permanent, the emotion always underlying.
Perfectly written, directed and embodied (we will also mention Pierre Perrier and Louis-Do de Lencquesaing), this spy thriller is a real success, in line with the Legends Office and other similar models. The first two episodes will be followed by the documentary Inside the secret services of the Islamic Statealso adapted from the book by Mathieu Suc. The next two will be broadcast on Tuesday, November 19, preceding the documentary Operation Apagan, exfiltrate Kabul.
