“It’s a model, it’s a clue”: Shadows in France 2 is inspired by the famous American political series

Broadcast on France 2, In the Shadows is a fascinating and unrelenting political series not to be missed. In six 52-minute episodes, this fiction follows the presidential election through the eyes of political consultant Cesar Casalonga (Swan Arlo).

The latter works with the former Minister of Justice and presidential candidate of the Republic, Paul Francoeur (Melville Poupaud), after a car accident in a wheelchair.

César “The Boss” has just won his party’s primary against opponent Marie-France Tremaux (Carin Viard) and is embarking on a presidential campaign that promises to be eventful. Caesar must then fend off attacks from other candidates and quell the grudges of his own political family.

But when suspicions of electronic voting fraud in the primary threaten to undermine his boss’s candidacy, Cesar realizes he will face the most difficult fight of his life.

Between realism and fiction, a series under American influence

If the series seems realistic to you, remember that it is loosely adapted from the novel of the same name, co-written by Edouard Philippe, former prime minister, now mayor of Le Havre, and his former special adviser and MEP Gilles Boyer.

To transition from a book published in 2011 to a fiction published this year, the duo surrounded themselves with a team of experienced screenwriters: Lamara Lepretre-Habib (D’argent et de Sang), Cédric Anger (Next Time, I Reach for the Heart). ) and Pierre Scholer (state training).

In addition to the technical and human realism of the workings of French politics, The Shadow was also intended to be a well-crafted entertaining and gripping thriller. The script team’s reference was the cult series À la maison blanche, one of Edouard Philippe’s favorite fictions, Pierre Scholer explained to us:

“It’s a model, it’s a reference. First of all, because of its length, the interplay between American political life and current events. That’s the genius of Aaron Sorkin. This series convinces us that it’s possible to create a strong political figure. Who isn’t a disappointing figure, who isn’t.” A figure of resentment.

It is important to be able to create a figure that we like to look at, like to see the work and to confront others with. And we agreed in that sense that we had to have characters that we had to respect.

Whether we agree with what they say is another matter. But in any case, they had to be whole. They have their dark side, they have their share of power, they have their share of sacrifice, they have their share of mistakes.”

For his part, Gilles Boyer confided that the inspiration came from the Aaron Sorkin series “Which describes a somewhat dreamy president” on Netflix’s popular House of Cards “Which on the contrary describes a dishonest president”. The idea was to focus on a happy medium “between” :

“What we were interested in was exploring the areas of uncertainty, the secrets, the unspeakable that is characteristic of each person, that can explode in broad daylight. The trust that we place in ourselves or in each other, we do not give up. It takes time to come and the speed with which it unfolds, the doubt that creates a commitment to life .

These are areas that we were interested in exploring and that are right in the middle of the two visions I described in the series, which are both high quality and very entertaining.

Inspirations from reality

Introduced at the Séries Mania festival, Karin Viard assured us that she was not inspired by any political figure to portray her character Marie-France Tremeau. Simply because the plot of the series, relentless and well-documented, was enough for him:

“I’m creating a character that’s hopefully very believable but not realistic, and that’s what I was interested in. She’s a character that we talk about a lot, that takes place even when she’s not in my play. It’s strong enough to give this unpleasant woman who’s up for anything It was as written.

This is a series that is very real and very well documented. Actually this is not a fantasy, everything we see is extremely real. We see how political figures are proxies for issues beyond them. It is extremely real and quite attractive. “

For his part, Melville Pupault, who plays Paul Francoeur, did his own research and research for inspiration. “Speakers, men, speeches, things like that” But he quickly got bored because he could not find a figure that matched his character. “The person I wanted to draw is often seen as rather weak, not a very good speaker, not very charismatic”.

He wanted to find his own embodiment and rely on the script and the basic material, which is the book by Edouard Philippe and Gilles Boyer. He also welcomed the working sessions during the reading “These two political advisers, screenwriters who repeated the diction of certain sentences, gave advice on how to behave and actually told the story behind the scenes of power”.

Comments collected by Megan Choquette during the Series Mania festival in Lille on March 17, 2024.

The series “Dans l’ombre” is currently airing on France 2, the last two episodes will air on November 13. The series is available on france.tv.