Investigative journalist Victor Castanet, in Paris on May 19, 2022 (AFP/Archives/JOEL SAGET)
“Information can change things”: investigative journalist Victor Castanet, who revealed the turpitudes of private Orpea nursing homes a year ago in his investigative book “Les Fossoyeurs”, today savors the shattering impact of his work, but refuses to see him as a “vigilante or an activist”.
“I practice impact journalism: I am alerted to malfunctions that I report faithfully, with evidence, with the aim that something happens afterwards”, explains to AFP the 35-year-old author, whose the work published by Fayard has already sold nearly 170,000 copies – a stratospheric result for a journalistic investigation.
The book comes out on January 25 in pocket, at “J’ai lu”, with a first edition of 50,000 copies. In this new version, augmented by ten unpublished chapters, the author reviews the denials of the management of Orpea after the release of the book, the strategy deployed to relativize the impact of his revelations, or the follow-up given to the scandal by the authorities.
For this very detailed investigation, the fruit of three years of work, the journalist, who made his debut on i-télé and Canal+, won the Albert-Londres Prize in November (in the “book” category). And his “Gravediggers” will soon be adapted into a TV movie for France 2.
The book-investigation Les Fossoyeurs by journalist Victor Castanet, on February 1, 2022 in Paris (AFP/Archives/Bertrand GUAY)
“Victor gave three years of his life to talk about old people and a mafia financial system. He is stubborn, sometimes exhausting, but he doesn’t let go,” said Laurent Garcia, nursing manager in nursing home who was the one of his first informants and now calls himself “his friend”.
“He’s a character, with a Tintin side. What we experienced with him is very romantic! And he has the talent to put people in confidence”, abounds Guillaume Gobet, another “source” of the book, former CGT delegate at Orpea.
– Thousands of messages –
“I knew there would be sequels, I had worked for that. But I still wondered who would buy a 400-page book on retirement homes! This is the hardest publishing success to imagine”, ironically the author. The book came at a time when the population, traumatized by the toll of the Covid among the elderly, was made aware of these questions, he notes however.
Thousands of readers have written to him to tell their own experience of the aging of a loved one, observes the author, who himself has just lost his 96-year-old grandfather – the writer, documentary filmmaker and actor Antoine Roblot, “a very committed man, a totem in my life”.
(AFP/Archives/JOEL SAGET)
Victor Castanet was also contacted by novice journalists, eager for advice to embark on long-term investigations. “There is a movement in the younger generation to move towards more fieldwork and investigation”, welcomes the 30-year-old, who speaks to journalism students at Science Po: “I tell them that a journalist does not have to be an activist, or to say what he thinks. I have often been asked if I was for the end of lucrative nursing homes, but it is not for me to answer.
After three years where he lived only on advances granted by his publisher, the 30-year-old, who lives with his family in the Parisian district of Belleville, now enjoys unexpected financial ease. And is already planning a new investigation, which it will be more difficult for him to carry out discreetly: “it is the disadvantage of my notoriety”.
This time, he will be interested in the health sector, “in the process of cracking”. The subject was inspired by the thousands of emails he has received since the publication of “The Gravediggers”. “Those who write to me work in the emergency room, in the field of disability or psychiatry, and they tell me + Come and investigate with us! +, summarizes the journalist.
“I think people turn to me because they see me as someone who is independent, who has time,” insists the journalist. “I don’t want subjects or a rhythm to be imposed on me. My obsession, since I was little, has been freedom”.
© 2023 AFP
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