Engrenages: A Microcosm of Modern France

Emily Moss

When Spiral - better known as Engrenages in the Francophone world - first premiered in the UK on BBC Four in 2007, it appeared ostensibly “French” to British viewers: it was sleek and enigmatic, with a suitably attractive cast who were arguably the best dressed lawyers, cops, and criminals the world had ever seen. Since its first series in 2005, it has spawned eighty-six episodes, eight series, international awards including BAFTAs and Emmys, and a fawning army of devoted fans across the world. It’s nothing short of a French cultural behemoth, and whilst it initially stood out in a sea of otherwise poor quality offerings from French TV, it has since been joined by similarly popular shows such as Marseille, The Returned (Les Revenants), Call My Agent (Dix Pour Cent) and Lupin. None of these shows, however, have had quite the same cultural impact as Spiral, nor its enviable longevity: fifteen years is no mean feat for any TV show, let alone a French police procedural drama telling the stories of the most unpleasant people you’ll never hope to meet in Paris. This year, season eight will be the last ever series of Spiral - but what exactly is it about the heady mixture of corrupt cops, crime, murder, and sordid love stories that has made the show so enduringly popular? 

Engrenages has never exactly been light fare though. One of its standout features, which perhaps explains its success, is its unflinching realism - from the bloodied dead bodies, to the mental health struggles, (distinctly French) bureaucracy, corruption, and careerism faced by the show’s characters. It is one of the few, if not the only, modern French TV shows that is unafraid to show France as it truly is for so many of its residents; especially those who do not have the fortune of being born into white, upper-middle class urban homes, which, let’s face it, is where much of France’s cultural, social and political elite come from. Instead, Engrenages offers a refreshing depiction of a country in crisis, much like its neighbours Britain and Germany. 

Credit: BBC, CC BY

Engrenages, Season 8

The tumultuous events of the early 21st century have not left France unscathed, but I always felt that many of the French films and TV series I watched sanitised - or sensationalised - the profound social unrest which has simmered in the country for the best part of the last decade; exacerbated by immigration, climate change, political mismanagement, the rise of populist far-right parties, pandemics and terrorism.  Engrenages, however, never shies away from these harsh truths. Although far from perfect, it offers invaluable insights into the realities of a country which remains something of an enigma, both within Europe and around the world. 

The show’s structure itself is formulaic: every series revolves around a murder that must be solved by Police Captain Laure Berthaud and her team. They are accompanied in their investigations by Juge Roban, an investigatory judge (a unique feature of the French inquisitorial justice system), and often hampered by ambitious (and unfeasibly attractive) criminal lawyers, Pierre Clément and Josephine Karlsson, who are both uncannily good at bending the rules and using them to free their clients. But perhaps this predictable formula is what has ensured the survival of Engrenages. This structure allows each series to explore a specific social issue in depth which is dealt with through the murder investigation, as well as through insights into the lives of both the victims and criminals involved. In this way, Engrenages already sets itself apart from similar police procedural dramas by truly showing us both sides of every story rather than offering a sensationalist murder mystery story. It is not so much of a whodunnit as a “why-dunnit”.

Much like in real life, the police are efficient enough to find the murderer a few weeks into the investigation, and the murderers are seldom committed by psychopathic serial-killers, but instead due to the effects of organised crime or gang violence which have both become increasingly commonplace in the banlieues.  Along the way, the viewer learns about issues such as sex work, human trafficking, drug abuse, domestic abuse, sexual assault, the struggles faced by young underage immigrants, the appeal of gangs for disillusioned youths, police brutality, and institutional racism, in a way which is unrestrained and, at times, almost unbearable to watch. If it’s the antithesis of an advert for French tourism, it is nevertheless a compellingly unpleasant watch, with sharp social commentary hidden beneath the premise of being a police procedural drama: Line of Duty this is not. 

Credit: Caroline Dubois / Son et Lumière / Canal+, New York Times, 4th January 2021

Caroline Proust in a scene from the final season of Engrenages

Engrenages is not only progressive in its treatment of social issues, however. It was one of the first mainstream TV shows to present two women in the series’ leading roles. Whilst other hits within the crime genre, such as The Bridge and The Fall, have introduced iconic female leads into the public psyche, these shows only started airing in 2011 and 2013 respectively, whilst Engrenages aired in 2005, at a time when seeing a woman in any leading role, let alone as a hardened police captain or an ambitious criminal lawyer, felt almost revolutionary. The trajectories of Laure Berthaud and Josephine Karlsson have often been the stuff that the dreams of Anglophone female actors are made of: they are independent, aggressive, ambitious, and unafraid of being unlikeable, much like so many of the best male characters on our screens. This is largely thanks to the fact that, in another rarity in the film and TV industry, the showrunner and many of its writers are women, enabling them to write complex stories about complex women in a way which feels wholly authentic and ungoverned by the male gaze. However, this is not to say that the series is inherently feminist: both Laure and Josephine spend much of their time in men’s worlds, being mistreated by men or attempting to adhere to the notion that women must adopt masculine mannerisms to succeed. In Laure’s case, this involves dressing in a stereotypically “masculine” way, spending much of her time engaging in “laddish” behaviour like drinking, shooting, and smoking with her male colleagues at the police station, and struggling to maintain relationships, and later, to be a good mother. Meanwhile, in Josephine’s case, she uses her beauty to “allow” herself to be preyed upon by older male colleagues in order to advance her career, betraying other women (including Laure) through her actions such as acting as a defense lawyer to predatory men to save her career, and having a similar issue with maintaining relationships, not least with her colleague-turned-partner Pierre. Although both characters experience profound, positive character development in later series,  both remain problematic, and in the real world many of their antics would most likely end up in a “bad feminist” textbook. Nevertheless, their status as female characters who are allowed to be flawed remains quite remarkable, even today. This doesn’t, however, detract from the more undeniably problematic aspects of Engrenages, which may or may not be attributed to its decidedly Gallic sensibility towards other matters. 

The most gaping problem in Engrenages - symptomatic of a much wider problem in French film and TV - is its treatment of people of colour. France’s universalist approach to ‘tackling’ racism, whereby it insists on citizens of all races and cultures assimilating into one homogenous “French” (i.e. white) culture, whilst simultaneously facing the same institutional racism as the rest of the Western world, is alarming. This approach is reflected in much of the French media, including film and TV; Engrenages is, unfortunately, no different. Although from series three onwards there is one police officer on Laure’s team who is French-Arab and another officer, in a minor role, who is French-Chinese, this does not equate to the issues of racism, and especially institutional racism, being tackled.  Instead, racism itself is only dealt with a handful of times across the eight series, such as when the French-Arab police officers are invariably the butt of Islamophobia, but it is always quickly dismissed. Meanwhile, almost all of the criminals over the eight series are people of colour, most often being Black. Whilst it may be easy to argue that the show’s writers simply sought to portray the “reality” of the Parisian criminals living in the banlieues which have famously high immigrant populations, this still feels like a discriminatory and unoriginal depiction of French people of colour. France is one of the most multicultural societies in the world, and the most racially diverse in Europe: to spend fifteen years with the only representations of people of colour being largely unsympathetic criminals, and with only three police officers, is profoundly problematic.

Credit: Caroline Dubois / Son et Lumière / Canal+, Paris Match, 6th June 2020

Lionel Erdogan, Valentin Merlet (Arnaud Beckriche), Tewfik Jallab (Ali Amrani), Thierry Godard (Gilou), Caroline Proust (Laure Berthaud), Kija King

Additionally, in the earlier seasons, depictions of obscene police brutality against people of colour abound. Laure and her colleague Gilles (“Gillou”) frequently emotionally and physically abuse suspects (who are typically people of colour) during interrogations. Gillou in particular is blatantly racist on multiple occasions in earlier series. The officers never face reprisals for their appalling behaviour from their (white) senior officers. Whether this is intended to be a commentary on the nature of police brutality in France - a country whose police force has an endemic problem with brutality - remains unclear. If the show does seek to be commentary, it should have interrogated the reasons for police impunity, particularly in light of the recently proposed (but fortunately rejected) law which would have prohibited the filming of the police in order to “protect” them. Thus, this ambiguity ultimately makes earlier seasons of the show especially difficult to watch in today’s environment, where awareness of such issues is far more widespread than it was in the early 2000s, and raises serious questions both about the French police force’s troubled relationship with people of colour, as well as the white-dominated French media’s relationship with people of colour. Moreover, in light of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, where some shows perceived as pro-cop (as Engrenages easily could be) were understandably boycotted, the show’s problematic treatment of people of colour must be regarded as one of several shortfalls which one must take into account if deciding to watch it. 

For its immensely gripping plots, characters, and the scenery of Paris alone, as well as the fascinating insight into the French judiciary system and the social problems faced by modern France, Engrenages is well worth the watch. However, the show’s often problematic representations of women and people of colour occasionally threaten to derail it entirely. Like many long-running shows, it is far from perfect, but it remains worth watching as the standout French TV show of the early 21st century.