A French series inspired by a true story of police brutality at Disney+

Consisting of four one-hour episodes, the series therefore documents the fate of student Malik Oussekine, who died at the age of 22 after being beaten by police.

For this first audiovisual adaptation – before Rachid Bouchareb, Our brothers and sistersfeature film to be shown in Cannes at the end of the month – French director Antoine Chevrollier assumes a bias: the release of this young man’s name, now inseparable from the fight against police violence, from the box of others other facts.

Malik Oussekine is not a news. It is a fundamental fact of society that should be considered as suchsays our creditor of the series The office of legends at dark baron. A story he discovered when he was a teenager thanks to a rap song by the French group Assassin.

But it was only a few years later that Oussekine’s name resonated more strongly with him, never leave him.

At that time, I had just arrived in Paris and I was often hanging out with young people from the neighborhood who kept talking to me about Oussekine. As a provincial [prolétaire]I felt that we found ourselves in the area of ​​invisibilization, exclusion and non-representationrecollection of Antoine Chevrollier.

This is the Arab George Floyd in France!

If Malik Oussekine’s name still resonates in French society, it has largely been the prerogative of a fight, which was against police violence, but became somewhat forgottensays historian Yvan Gastaut.

The question is has not Malik Oussekin forgotten but whom?nuance the immigration history specialist Pascal Blanchard.

Young people in North Africa and more generally in those days, who were a young person already sensitive to racial discrimination, were sensitive to this crime which it considered a racist crime. But the other French do not see this storyhe continued.

We are talking about a racialized victim, who in the name of his or her skin color would be brutalized. Who public would not be sensitive to this?, asked Mr. Blanchard. And add: This is the Arab George Floyd in France!

Exploring the French Wounds

For Antoine Chevrollier, the format of the miniseries is the most appropriate to approach the subject.

While scratching, I realized that we have a lot to say like the Algerian war (1954-1962), the political situation of France living in one residence, the social context … and only one series will allow me to reveal everything of these stories.he argued.

The way to achieve this? Divide the story into three different layers, then make them coexist.

First in the current season, which followed Malik’s family quarrel until the trial of the two policemen, then another focused on the young man’s last hours.

Finally, the last layer inscribes the individual history of the Oussekine family in France, such as the intense reconstruction of the October 1961 massacre in which demonstrators of Algerian nationality were thrown into the Seine by police.

The Oussekine family was involved in the project

For this, Antoine Chevrollier surrounded himself with four screenwriters: the author Faïza Guène, known for her books researching the identity of French women and men from immigration to North Africa, the Franco-Burkinabe director Cédric Ido, screenwriter Julien Lilti and the youth. director Lina Soualem.

But most of all, he benefited from the support and advice of Malik Oussekine’s two brothers and one of Malik Oussekine’s sisters. For me, it’s unthinkable that they don’t associate with the projecthe reports.

A political series? What interests me are injustices. Whether it is for the children of immigrants or the proletarians of the provinces … Moreover, I think, it is the same. Anyway, that’s it, the time has come for us to tell a story and dust off the national novelhe explains.

And to conclude: I hope the series will help alleviate the tensions plaguing the country. It is time for us in France to start treating historical metastases.