If certain passages of “Sambre” have been fictionalized to fit the needs of the fiction, certain sometimes unusual anecdotes really took place. As is the case in episode 2, broadcast this evening on France 2.
France 2 is no stranger to adapting news stories. After the acclaimed Laetitia, which returned to the Laëtitia Perrais affair, the channel is once again teaming up with director Jean-Xavier de Lestrades for Sambre, a punchy mini-series which should leave no one indifferent.
Adapted from the work of Alice Géraud, who also worked on the scenarios with Marc Herpoux, this fiction in 6 episodes highlights the story of one of the greatest serial rapists that France has known, and thus shows the evolution of a justice system which, even today, struggles to stem sexist and sexual violence.
Between 1988 and 2018, the day of his arrest, Dino Scalla (renamed Enzo Salina in the series), said “the rapist of the Sambre” is said to have attacked nearly eighty women in the north of France, on the banks of the Sambre.
If the screenwriters have sometimes fictionalized certain moments of the story in order to stick to the codes of fiction, there are certain improbable passages which nevertheless really happened. As was the case in episode 2 of Sambre, broadcast this Monday evening from 10:20 p.m.
The crazy anecdote of the robot portrait
In the second episode, entitled “Irene (the judge)”, Enzo Salina attacks a woman in her home. If usually the rapist manages to hide his face, this time he is unmasked by his victim who then draws a composite portrait for the police. A drawing that looks exactly like the character played by Jonathan Turnbull.
At this point in the story, Enzo has become very friendly with many police officers at the station. However, none of them seem to make the connection between their friend and the suspect. While he spends the evening at the police station having a drink with his football friends, he even goes so far as to stand next to the robot portrait and joke with the police officer played by Julien Frison that the man they are looking for looks a lot like him.
“Damn, but it’s also true” they respond, laughing before continuing their evening. An anecdote straight out of the worst detective film which is nevertheless very real, as Alice Géraud confided during a press briefing organized to promote Sambre.
“It’s true. He also said during his trial that this had happened on several occasions.”, she explained. “This robot portrait existed. And with hindsight, we realize that it is the rapist’s photocopy. It’s edifying. But in France, we do not have this culture of communication.“
“The police refused to make the photo public, even though it was in local police stations. What is interesting is that Belgium had recovered the portrait made in France and had distributed it.”
“There is a form of denial…”
But then how can we explain that the police officers, who met the rapist every week during their football training, could have missed this resemblance? For Alix Poisson, who plays Christine, Enzo’s first victim, the answer is very simple.
“There is a form of denial”, she said. “For a very long time, we didn’t want to see that 95% of rapists were completely normal people, who went to work, were punctual, had a family…“
“It’s disturbing because if we accept this initial premise, it means that we all have someone around us capable of doing that. To me, that doesn’t mean the police were incompetent when they saw the sketch. It’s just that for them, it wasn’t possible. They knew him, he was a normal man.”
It was also important for Alice Géraud, who wrote the work from which the series is adapted, to develop the character of Enzo in Sambre. This made it possible to place the criminal in a banality and normality, and thus to highlight that he was far from resembling the stereotype of the rapist often conveyed in the media.
Watch two new episodes of Sambre from 9:10 p.m. on France 2. The 6 episodes are already available in preview on the france.tv platform.