Dominique Manotti: Affairs of State

The aim is clear: to discredit the Élysée unit, the team of police officers and gendarmes responsible for protecting the President’s security and coordinating the fight against terrorists in France. A crack team which has been successful in every case it has handled and which has, let it be said loud and clear, dealt a serious blow to the spread of terrorism in France with the arrest of the Irish in August ’82.

The three men straighten up in unison.

‘I bet he believes it.’

‘Impressive.’

This unit continues to centralise and store all intelligence on terrorism, seeking to coordinate the numerous police and gendarmerie departments concerned and plays a key part in international counter-terrorism cooperation. In short, its role is eminently positive and paves the way for setting up a national security council on the model of the American NSC. Its remit will be to support the President and provide him with analyses and briefings on national security issues.

‘It’s Bornand, without a doubt. Staunchly pro-American since his teens.’

‘We underestimated him. The man’s a poet.’

So who gains from discrediting this crucial mechanism? The traditional police departments which feel threatened, those whose incompetence, inefficiency, infighting and self-defeating rivalry are blatant, and whose chiefs are afraid of losing their powers and their privileges and who, need we be reminded, have never been excessively fond of President Mitterrand.

Guillaume Labbé.

‘What do you think?’ asks Macquart.

‘What’s bitten him? If it is him. It’s less than a year until the election and all the polls, including ours, indicate that the Socialists will lose. This isn’t exactly the best time to start a war between the President’s private police force and the official police department.’

‘The war’s already on. Against the Élysée unit. The press campaign on the Irish of Vincennes hasn’t come out of the blue. I think that Bornand’s simply mistaken his target, it’s his old animosity towards the official police resurfacing.’

‘Is this a storm in a teacup or is it dangerous?’

‘Bornand, if it is him, is a personal friend of President Mitterrand. Definitely influential, but a lone sniper who’s becoming increasingly isolated.’

‘So, much ado about nothing …’

‘You can’t be too careful. I’ll take another look at his file.’

All morning Noria has been logging reports of lost and stolen cars, mopeds, handbags, dogs, household tools, wines lovingly laid down in a cellar (with the list of châteaux, watch the spelling, the plaintiff is a connoisseur). She’s now been a police officer based in the 19th arrondissement of Paris for two months, after more than a year of hardship, poverty, hostels, casual jobs on the side. Far from the dense tangle of family hatred and violence. Far too from her school friends, the occasional caring teacher, books devoured in secret, and from the school drama society. Getting up on stage, existing in her own right while playing the part of another, had been an illuminating discovery. It all now seemed a long way away, all that, a world out of reach … Now her one obsession was to find a way of earning her living. Fast.

Having reached the age of eighteen, there were the formalities for getting duplicates of her ID, assisted by women’s organisations, and the endless hanging around at various town halls, where by chance an ad had caught her eye: ‘Recruitment competition. Police officers. Baccalaureate required.’

Baccalaureate. She’d had to leave school at sixteen to help her mother, and anyway, studying wasn’t for girls. Not for boys either for that matter. Her two older brothers had better things to do around the neighbourhood. Baccalaureate. I haven’t got it either, but I’m bright enough. A police officer. A steady job. Better than that, an ID card, a place in the world, a role to play, on the side of the law, on the side of power.

And today, like every other day, forms in triplicate, including one for the insurance company, the usual routine. The routine, this morning, is the secret and mysterious disappearance of 174 clandestinely lacquered ducks from kitchens in lower Belleville apartments, destined for the Chinese restaurants that have sprung up there. Gang warfare, blackmail, a racket, a raid by the hungry? No one at the precinct feels exactly at home in the local Chinatown. And now a distraction: the superintendent calls Noria into his office.

‘Be an angel and take this file,’ (beige cardboard cover, containing photocopies). ‘Fifteen or so complaints about the same problem, in the same place, in less than a month. It’s not a case of major importance, but it is causing quite a lot of bad feeling. I had a call from the deputy mayor, the elections are getting close. Go and interview the plaintiffs. Reassure these good women, show them that the police takes citizens’ concerns seriously and are on the case. I’m counting on you. I want a report this evening.’

‘Very good, Superintendent.’

Be an angel. Would it kill him to say my name, Noria Ghozali? She feels choked. Fearing the worst, she picks up the file and sits down in a vacant office to read it.

Four women aged between sixty-seven and eighty-five, all living in one of the reputedly peaceful ‘villages’ in the 19th arrondissement , on top of a hill. The grannies state that they’re terrified to leave their homes, because, for about a month, firecrackers hidden in dog mess explode as they walk past, splattering them with dog shit.

Noria takes a deep breath. The youngest, the only woman, the only cop of North African origin, a mere officer, a lowly, precarious status. Naturally, I get to deal with the dog shit. Maybe when I ‘grow up’, I’ll be given the dogs that get run over. Huh, some promotion.

A list of the four ‘victims’ and their addresses, all up on Buttes Chaumont. She walks up the hill. Quiet, narrow streets, not many cars, a few passers-by who stop to greet each other and pause for a chat, brick houses built close together offering a panoramic view of Montmartre as a bonus. On this sunny day, the Sacré Coeur gleams white, looking like a mosque with its minaret-like bell tower.

First on the list, Madame Aurillac, seventy-five years old, owner of a little restaurant serving a dish of the day for more than four decades. Five complaints from her alone. A low house, restaurant on the ground floor, and on the first floor, two vast windows hung with white brocade curtains. Noria pushes open the door. Four elderly women are sitting at one of the tables, gossiping and laughing. There’s a half-empty bottle of Suze − only eleven o’clock in the morning and they’re already sozzled.

‘Madame Aurillac?’ inquires Noria.

The four women stare at her, sizing her up. Average height, shapeless in brown cotton trousers and jacket, a round, slightly moon-shaped face, olive skin, big, impenetrable black eyes beneath heavily drawn eyebrows, and black hair scraped back in a tight bun.

‘Too severe and a terrible hairdo,’ says the first woman.

A bleached blonde caked with make-up inquires: ‘Are you new?’

‘Perhaps we could emphasise her exotic side,’ says the third.

Noria flashes her ID: ‘Police.’

Consternation among the old girls. A woman with dyed hair and a frizzy perm gets up, a black apron around her waist, and slippers on her feet:

‘I’m Madame Aurillac. It’s a mistake. We had an appointment with an applicant …’

‘For a job as a cleaner,’ adds the blonde.

So they did. The applicant arrives, hair immaculately styled, make-up, high heels, short black skirt and pink cotton vest revealing her navel, breasts spilling out, larger than life. Madame Aurillac rushes over to her, drags her into the street, has a few words with her and comes back into the restaurant alone.