From prison to Netflix to the National Rally

(Toulon) At the Mourillon market, in the heart of Toulon, a couple approaches Sébastien Soulé, the candidate of the National Rally in the legislative elections in the town on the Côte d’Azur. After enthusiastic words and pats on the back, they ask to have their photo taken with the candidate. Right in front of the olive and fish stalls.

Friends ? “No, I had never met them, but they really liked the film BAC North and they support us,” replies the 47-year-old police officer, smiling.

BAC Northis the film by director Cédric Jimenez which is based on his story. BAC Nord is also the name of the anti-crime brigade to which Sébastien Soulé belonged for nine years.

In 2012, after successfully carrying out a major police operation against a drug trafficking network in Marseille, Sébastien Soulé and 11 of his colleagues were arrested and accused of corruption, racketeering and drug trafficking.

As a young father, Sébastien Soulé spent 69 days behind bars, in solitary confinement. Released in December 2012, he was not cleared of all suspicion until a decade later. The film which is inspired by this saga – and in which the character of Sébastien Soulé was renamed Yassin – was presented at the Cannes Film Festival before the end of the trial and has enjoyed renewed popularity on Netflix since May. Mr. Soulé also recently published a book on the whole affair.

“A reversal of values”

After his release from prison, transferred to Toulon, Sébastien Soulé was recruited by the police union to defend his colleagues. “Given everything I had experienced, the union came to get me to help other police officers when they had problems,” he says today. In this work, we realize that there is a lot of suffering and a lack of recognition. In fact, over the last 25 years I have seen a reversal of values. When I joined the police, there was a deep respect for the profession. Today we have become targets. They harass us even in our homes,” he says, aside from his campaign activity, coffee in hand.

Who are these “they”? “The young and the Islamo-leftists,” he sums up.

” The society [française] has gone wild,” he continues, convinced that France has a huge security problem, even though the most recent statistics show that the crime rate is falling in France. “We can make statistics say whatever we want!” he retorts, with a smile on his lips and his southern accent.

Hooked atoms

His speech is music to the ears of the National Rally. The party of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, described as far right or radical right, has made security a central theme of its election campaign.

The party proposes to impose minimum sentences for certain crimes. It also wants to give the presumption of self-defense to police officers who use their weapons.

The recruit

When Laure Lavalette, outgoing National Rally MP in another Toulon constituency, approached him to run, he decided to go for it.

Even though he is a political novice. Even though the election campaign, which ended Friday, only lasted two weeks. “It’s good to raise awareness about what’s wrong, but at some point, things have to change,” he says. My candidacy is a bit like my response to what I experienced in the BAC Nord,” says the man who says he has only been voting for the National Rally for a few years.

And how does he live with the “extreme right” label that the party, renamed in 2018, bears, but which struggles to make people forget that it is the heir to the National Front founded in 1972 by Jean-Marie Le Pen and former Nazi sympathizers? “What I see is that the tags that are made on the walls with Nazi symbols, they do not come from us, but from people who want to discredit us,” says Sébastien Soulé. However, he does not hesitate to make a direct link between insecurity and immigration, which, according to him, “overwhelms” France.

Toulon enthusiasm

At the campaign event we attended, the candidate did not have to fervently defend the party’s ideas. He received far more smiles and handshakes than disapproving glances.

This is not a huge surprise. In the European elections of June 9, Toulon is the French urban area where the National Rally achieved the best score, with 36% of the votes given to the list headed by Jordan Bardella, the young president of the party.

Is it easy though? When a voter came to shake Sébastien Soulé’s hand and told him “I don’t want any more veiled women!” », the new politician was speechless. It was a young RN activist who accompanied him who came to his rescue. “You know, ma’am, we defend everyone’s right to religion,” replied the young man. An angel passed by.