“Blues, white, red”, the black novel of the French lead years | EUROtoday

On Apr 5, 2025

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C ‘is a loopy race. We meet a thousand characters there. Cops (Robert Broussard, his leather-based jacket, his beard collar). Policies (beginning with VGE, in particular person). Dozens of triggers and terrorists whose identify belongs to the legend of the underworld (Jacques Mesrine, the general public enemy n ° 1, Jean-Marc Rouillan, one of many founders of direct motion, the Zemour brothers…).

In almost 800 pages (and that is solely the primary quantity of the trilogy), Benjamin Dierstein tells the primary steps of two younger rivals with lengthy tooth, one to the RG, the opposite on the Antigang, who play the police conflict, chunk their indications, disguise complete nights and particularly observe a personality who seems to be like two water drops of water.

In the archives of the police headquarters

With its development of a bewitching thoroughness the place actuality and fiction are knitted with delight (we rapidly guess that Dierstein holds James Ellroy for mentor), Blue, white, purple is the black novel of a humorous time, the French lead years.

Here, you need to comply with Alain Pacadis, the king of the evening who drags the reader within the not so glamours basements from Paris till the early morning. There, we discreetly spin a mercenary who seems to be like Bob Denard who fricotes with the key companies and Françafrique.

A bit additional, we accompany – at a good way – Pierre Goldman get misplaced in his insanity and his intoxication of violence. We open our eyes to the armed excesses of a small fringe of the extremely -ke and we dig up the secrets and techniques of the bag holders of the bag (civic motion service), this not so wonderful pharmacy climbed by the heirs of Gaullism.

To construct his titanic meccano with out making it an encyclopedia, Dierstein (who was not born within the late Seventies) plunged into the archives of the police headquarters. He reread a whole bunch of newspapers and watched dozens of hours of INA archives, which permits him to inform the type of promoting ashtrays of the time.

Reading it, you may scent the seats in imitation leather-based automobiles within the Renault Régie. There is the colour of the costumes of essential folks of the second. With, as a bonus, the soundtrack of these years that sticks to the beautiful rhythm of this cavalcade within the coronary heart of the Giscard years.

To uncover

The kangaroo of the day

Answer

“Blues, white, red”by Benjamin Dierstein (Flammarion, 796 p., € 24.50).

https://www.lepoint.fr/livres/bleus-blancs-rouges-le-roman-noir-des-annees-de-plomb-a-la-francaise-05-04-2025-2586584_37.php