Paris (AFP)

Roger Borniche, who died Tuesday at the age of 101, distinguished himself as a cop in post-war France before successfully embarking on the writing of nearly 30 thrillers, some of which inspired cinema and his friend Alain Delon.

This old-fashioned cop, who, according to legend, did not carry weapons, lived for a long time in Los Angeles, in a superb house where, when he was not in his swimming pool, he liked to follow from his living room the live arrests that Americans love. For five years, he had lived in the district of California, in Cannes.

Inspector Borniche was in the 1950s the number one enemy of public enemies. He told in his books the ruthless war he waged against Pierrot le fou, Jo Attia, Émile Buisson or René la Canne. He claimed to have arrested 567 mobsters in 13 years of career: "I have the instinct of the hunter and the scent of game."

Several films have been adapted (notably by Alphonse Boudard) from his stories: "Flic story" (by Jacques Deray, with Alain Delon, 1975), "Le gang" (by Jacques Deray, with Alain Delon, 1976), "René la Canne "(by Francis Girod, with Gérard Depardieu, 1977) or" L'inic "(by Serge Leroy, with Daniel Auteuil, 1983).

His books, translated into about twenty languages, were written quickly and efficiently: "I am a primary, I write as I speak". We owe him "The private", "The gang", "The Ricain", "The gringo", "The archangel", "The Maltese", "The boss", "Theft of a nest of jewelry" (those de la Bégum in 1949 in Cannes), "Frenchie: a Frenchman in the heart of the Californian industry". He recounted his unusual life in "Borniche Story" and in "L'unic".

- Parisian titi -

His works have enjoyed immense popular success because his heroes were credible, sometimes at the cost of some accommodation with historical truth, and because we never got bored in his stories of underworld, drugs, prostitution, of thieves of a time that seems very distant today.

Roger Borniche was born in Vineuil-Saint-Firmin, in the Oise, on June 7, 1919. His father, a survivor of Verdun, is a house painter. Titi in Paris, Roger was first a comic trooper in 1937 then a singer at the Caveau de la République. Talkative, expansive, good imitator (of Charles Trenet or Fernandel), he is good at communication, before the surge of contemporary media.

Entering the police to escape from the Compulsory Labor Service (STO), he resigned so as not to serve Vichy and was reinstated in 1944. He became a National Security inspector.

In 1973, at the end of five interviews given to Pierre Desgraupes in Le Point, he concluded as follows: "Nowadays, there is politics that gets involved, the so-called converted mobsters who are recruited to put up posters . It has become a terrible game and that's why I'm finally glad I'm no longer a cop. "

Among his regrets is that of not having arrested Jacques Mesrine, known for media hijackings and for his escapes: "we made him a man to be killed, I consider that it was an assassination (editor's note: in 1979, at Paris, the anti-gang brigade shoots it with 21 bullets. 18 hit it.) I always thought that we had to take the mobsters alive and I never carried any weapons. talk and learn things. "

Her son Christian had taken over the private investigation agency, specializing in insurance fraud, which Roger Borniche had created after leaving the cop profession.

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