2023-09-17 08:30:36
Between 1988 and 2018, rapes and sexual assaults occurred one following the other in the North, all using the same modus operandi. Victims strangled, dragged aside, threatened with knives. Attacks at dawn, in winter, on public roads, near the Sambre river. All within a 30 km radius. However, it took until 2018 for a man to be arrested and 2022 for him to appear in court. The case remains pending, however, since sentenced to twenty years of criminal imprisonment for 54 rapes and sexual assaults, “the Sambre rapist” has appealed.
A botched investigation
Fiction has seized on this scandalous story of a failed investigation. Friday evening, the first episode of Sambre was presented in preview, during an “event evening” at the Festival of TV fiction, in La Rochelle.
The series, which will be broadcast on France 2 on a still unknown date focuses on one of the victims, Christine, played by Alix Poisson. The young mother, a hairdresser, is violently attacked while going to catch her bus before daybreak. Long-term traumatized, she sees her complaint discredited, the investigation botched and her personal and family life turned upside down.
« Sambre questions society’s relationship with rape and shows how our view has evolved on this crime”introduced Delphine Ernotte, the president of France Télévisions.
Freely inspired by the affair, the fiction was created by Alice Géraud, already author of the investigative book Sambre: Radioscopy of a news item (published in 2023) and by Marc Herpoux (Witnesses).
“Rape culture”
There are stories that we cannot let pass, declared director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, Oscar winner for best documentary in 2002 for A guilty person idealauthor and director of Influence games, Manon 20 years old and of Laëtitia. After this series, already inspired by a news item, the murder of Laëtitia Perrais in Pornic, in 2011, he nevertheless vowed to change register. “But we mightn’t miss a story that tells so much regarding the world in which we live, and especially our society’s view of sexual violence and rape culture. This is a subject on which I have already worked a lot and which is close to my heart”detailed the director.
Director Jean-Xavier De Lestrade and actress Alix Poisson in La Rochelle, Saturday September 16, 2023. | JÉRÔME FOUQUET/OUEST-FRANCE See in full screen Director Jean-Xavier De Lestrade and actress Alix Poisson in La Rochelle, Saturday September 16, 2023. | JÉRÔME FOUQUET/WEST-FRANCE
“I know deeply that this series will be a landmark because it speaks regarding something essential. The political inertia on sexual violence once morest women and children deeply revolts me, reacted Alix Poisson. But we are all part of a system that can stem this infamous rape culture. I believe in fiction. I sincerely think that fiction and therefore the collective can save lives. »
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