The first minutes of the series take us back to the beginning of the chaos. This disastrous November 13, 2015, only a few hours before the first bombs and the first bursts… We follow members of the French secret services, on edge, in a state of maximum alert, because the attacks which that evening caused 130 deaths and more than 400 injured were far from being a surprise to the authorities. The idea then was not to know if jihadists would indeed strike, but rather when. We discover in particular that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, one of the masterminds of the operation, had come close to being arrested a few months earlier! “This is precisely the drama of anti-terrorism. You may be on the right track, but it only takes one little thing for it to be too late. This is what we wanted to show”confides Franck Philippon, the creator of Spies of Terror.
The scenario gets carried away and takes us (really) from the second episode: in the aftermath of the horror, when the hunt for the sponsors and their accomplices begins. After a summit meeting, the DGSI and the DGSE, the internal and external intelligence services, decide to join forces to find the spies of the Islamic State. A painstaking work where infiltration and harassment of sources (repentant or not) intertwine, where every second counts double.
“Not using the horror of this event was respecting the memory of the victims”
In constant tension, magnified by the music of Philippe Jakko (deservedly awarded this year at the La Rochelle TV Fiction Festival), the four episodes of Spies of Terror captivate and shake. Notably because the one who took up the eponymous investigation by journalist Matthieu Suc (Harper Collins France, 2018) succeeds in brilliantly avoiding certain sensationalist pitfalls. “I forbade myself from the outset to show scenes which describe the attacks. Not using the horror of this event was respecting the memory of the victims”confides Franck Philippon.
Top actors
A welcome modesty, as much as the choice of a narrative which focuses on the heroes of the espionage. No scene is described from the point of view of the jihadists and the latter are never really embodied on screen. “This is one of the dangers of fiction, continues the screenwriter. Representing them means taking the risk of “humanizing” them at one point or another…” If the series manages to compete with the gems of the genre, notably the cult Legends Office(Canal+) without imitating it, it is also thanks to its casting: with headliners like Rachida Brakni as a fine analyst from the DGSE and Vincent Elbaz as a quiet major and all in psychology.
Love stories, personal problems… these agents are not just tracking machines
But also less high-sounding names like Fleur Geffrier (Drops of God), whose role and red hair recall Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty, and Pierre Perrier (Sambre), who establish themselves as agents of the DGSI. Special mention also to Rachid Guellaz (Valid) who camps “Minotaur”this particularly invested informant who turns the investigation on its head. So many characters inspired by reality, of course, but nevertheless fictionalized in order to protect their true identity.
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Spectacular
So that “the packaging is more televisual”Franck Philippon chose to describe the intimate lives of his characters. Love stories, personal problems… these intelligence agents are not just tracking machines. A questionable choice, however, because certain scenes would have benefited from being only suggested. In the same sense, the settings, like the protagonists' offices, are much warmer on screen than the real ones. “We must not put off viewers in order to ensure a certain form of spectacle to find the balance between this realism and this essential work of staging”he explains. And the show, in fact, lives up to the subject.
The Spies of Terror ***, by Franck Philippon, with Rachida Brakni, Vincent Elbaz, Fleur Geffrier. Four 50-minute episodes. Wednesday November 13 at 9 p.m. on M6.
France
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