The title is misleading: Parliament reminds one of a pompous series on the European Parliament. This was also the first reaction of the main actor, Xavier Lacaille: “It’s true that at the beginning, when I received an email with the cast of Parliament, I said to myself that there was a mistake and that I had been taken for a parliamentary assistant.”
But no, Parliament it’s a burlesque series on the underside of the European Parliament. How to elect your worst president, in order to better manipulate him. How a new upstart MP tries to make a move and invents on a corner of the table a Blue Deal supposed to protect the oceans. How behind-the-scenes lobbies try to influence MPs.
Xavier Lacaille already played Sammy in season 1. Novice assistant in this tower of Babel. The success of the first season had surprised the actor Xavier Lacaille: “The subject is particular. The European Union is not necessarily something very funny on paper. So it was quite encouraging to see that people could find it funny – obviously it’s a comedy, so it was made for. The texts were very funny, very precise for me. Even the filming was wacky because it’s true that we really shot in parliament. The corridors are endless, the places are a bit mysterious, secret . We discover rooms.”
For this new season, we discover other mysteries of Xavier Lacaille politics: “It’s funny: you can talk about it in two ways: either it’s a funny political series or a funny political series. And I think season 2 is maybe more of a funny political series. Yes, politically, we’re going further. There’s a technical term that was actually invented by the authors: we’re going to vote on it in trialogue. To really achieve our goals, we find ourselves confronted with three poles within Parliament. We have sometimes levers that are very personal and very intimate levers to obtain these political ends.”
A wacky but extremely well documented series. Xavier Lacaille says: “I have received a lot of messages from parliamentary assistants or former assistants who confirm to me that we are close to reality, at least in their daily lives, and that they were happy to watch the series because it’s not a profession that we see a lot in fiction. In general, we rather see doctors, lawyers, police officers.”
Parliament a series by Noé Debré. The first season is broadcast every Monday evening on France 5 and the second season is available free of charge on the france.tv platform.