In "The Fall of the Balkany House", broadcast Tuesday evening on France 5, Félix Seger recounts the rise, the reign then the fall of Isabelle and Patrick Balkany, the most sulphurous couple in politics in recent decades.

The journalist, who had access to a mine of archives, tells why this documentary could be made today. 

Patrick and Isabelle Balkany ruled Levallois for nearly four decades.

Inseparable, they met in 1983 and, despite some betrayals, never separated their journey, marked by an undivided reign in the Hauts-de-Seine, then by a descent into hell, with several convictions in particular for tax evasion. .

It is this story that Félix Seger tells in

La Chute des maisons Balkany

, a documentary in the series

It was written

, broadcast Tuesday evening on France 5 at 8:50 pm.

"There was a cinematographic and dramatic material which was quite exceptional", testifies the journalist Tuesday on Europe 1. 

"The tongues have loosened a little"

It is that in more than 35 years, the couple, who benefited from proximity with Charles Pasqua and Nicolas Sarkozy in particular, made much speak about him.

So the matter to be dealt with was "immense", according to Félix Seger.

"There are a lot of archives. They talked a lot and we talked a lot about them", continues the director. 

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A few years ago, the journalist's greatest difficulty would not have been to choose among all these archives, but to face the silence of his potential interlocutors.

This omerta no longer exists.

"The tongues have loosened a little," confirms Félix Seger.

"That's why I wanted to make this film today. As the cases were judged, we did not need to repeat by A + B all these things a little complex. We could analyze a little. more in detail."

When Patrick Balkany snatches a journalist's camera

The documentary also looks back on an anecdote that illustrates the increasingly strained relations with the media, as the judicial stranglehold tightened. In 2014, Patrick Balkany gets angry with a journalist from BFMTV and tears off his camera. “He wants to turn it off, he wants to get rid of the rushes and he leaves, but the camera is still running. He brings it to a shed, we see boxes where Nicolas Sarkozy has written on it. follows, who says 'Patrick, stop, why are you doing that?' ", details Félix Seger. "And finally, he never managed to turn off the camera. And BFMTV broadcast a report where we saw it all. It was really scary."

So many archives, many interlocutors, but not the main stakeholders. "I had Isabelle Balkany on the phone which, at the beginning, was quite hostile. Finally, we discussed a little, but no, they did not want to participate in the documentary", confirms the journalist. "There weren't so many arguments, except that they had spoken enough and that they did not want to express themselves in a documentary of this length. Isabelle Balkany told me. even said 'it's 90 minutes, it's even more of a documentary, it's a film. What are you going to tell?' ”Answer Tuesday evening on France 5.