“The Spies of Terror”: should we watch this series on the behind-the-scenes of French intelligence after the 2015 attacks?

Series. December 11, 2015, in Raqqa, Syria. A terrorist is killed by a drone strike. The man was one of those who organized the attacks which devastated Paris a month earlier, on November 13. It was mild and the terraces were full when the terrorists attacked. From firefighters to specialists from the DGSE and DGSI, everyone was immediately called to the scene or to their offices: “What we had feared for months has just happened, we could and should have done better,” explains the commissioner. Gomez (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing) to his troops, the evening of the tragedy, which left 130 dead and 351 injured. “You are angry, so am I, but outside there are victims, wounded and terrorists ready to strike again. So we multiply searches and wiretapping. We don't let anything slip through and we stay on the bridge until we catch the bastards who did this! »

A cathartic story

Between the images of President Hollande and those of the victims which are playing in a loop on the continuous news channels, the intelligence services are organizing themselves and their families. Abaoud, once dead or returned to Syria, is wanted again. In Paris, Lucie Kessler (Fleur Geffrier), 35, a young commander at the DGSI, gets closer to Malika Choukri (Rachida Brakni), a seasoned analyst at the DGSE. An unprecedented agreement between services.
In Lille, Vincent Morin (Vincent Elbaz), major at the Lille branch of the DGSI, relies on Rachid, a new source called Minotaure, a former drug trafficker ready to help them shelter his little brother who has left. engage in Syria.

A four-episode mini-series, dense, well-documented and realistic, by Franck Philippon (“Mirage”, “À coeur Ouvert”…). The author was struck by reading an article by Matthieu Suc, specialist journalist at Médiapart, and saw in his book “The Spies of Terror”

“the material for a story that is not only captivating but above all cathartic, capable of both expressing the feelings that inhabited us after November 13 and telling of the need to overcome through action. »

Decipher the world
The various protagonists are caught up in the drama and the demands of the investigation in which they invest body and soul, leaving feathers in the process: Fleur misses her love life with a commander of the DGSI, Malika does not see her husband, doctor, who sinks after helping the victims of the Bataclan, while Vincent has given up all family life and spends his Christmases, alone, with his partner…

Close to the film “November”, by Cédric Jimenez with Jean Dujardin released in 2022, the series “The Spies of Terror” is part of the time of the investigation (several years) while the first only explores the five first days after the tragedy. But both works have the same ambition: to decipher the world and its upheavals, to evoke the human behind those who try, on a daily basis, to dismantle terrorist networks and protect France. A novelty for M6 which is focusing, today, on series which analyze a story that is still very close, as the Anglo-Saxons have been doing for a long time. While the other channels had opened the way, from “Baron Noir” to “Men of the Shadows”, from “La Fever” to “Argent et de Sang”, a more or less fictional rereading of our time and from his dark side.

* “The Spies of Terror” by Matthieu Suc, Harper Collins Pocket.