The critics' Mystery prize

Claude Mesplède
Trans.: Lisa M. Griffiths

France, 2006

 

Every year a group of French critics specialising in detective literature vote for the year's best novel. In 2006 the prize was awarded to:

French Tabloid by Jean-Hughes OPPEL (Editions Rivages/Thriller)

The premise of this excellent novel is the results of the French presidential elections in 2002. The two candidates who came out ahead in the first ballot were outgoing president Chirac and the National Front's Le Pen. Due to this result the majority of French people voted for Chirac in the second ballot to eliminate Le Pen. But why did this far-right party representative obtain such a result? Why were there no candidates from the left present in the second ballot? These are the two questions that French Tabloid attempts to answer, by reconstructing a frame-up, cleverly orchestrated by a few policemen and several information professionals who knew how to manipulate opinion, through campaigns based on insecurity. By its very title French Tabloid pays tribute to the James Ellroy's novel American Tabloid. It is obvious that the great American novelist's method of revisiting history inspired Jean-Hughes Oppel, who convincingly lays bare certain hidden aspects of French politics.

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