Franck Martins, the Lille cop who feeds TF1's "HPI" series

• The detective series "HPI", broadcast on TF1, is inspired by the experience of a former Lille judicial police officer, Franck Martins.

• Retired a few weeks ago, Franck Martins now plans to write his cop memoirs.

• In the meantime, he continues to collaborate on season 3 which is being filmed at the end of November in the North.

Major Karadec is a bit like him.

The hero of the TF1 detective series,

, is inspired, in fact, by the experience of a real cop who works in the judicial police services of Lille.

Or rather worked because he has just retired.

And if the character played by Mehdi Nebbou has nothing to do with the character of the police commander Franck Martins, the link between the two men made it possible to give credibility to the role and to forge a real friendship.

While a new filming sequence has just started in the North for season 3,

went to meet the cop who feeds

.

How did this collaboration on the HPI

series begin

Our interregional director of the judicial police, Romuald Muller, was approached by a production company which was planning to shoot a detective series in Lille.

The hero was a police commander in the crime squad, and the film crew conducted documentary research on the profession.

She wanted to get as close to reality as possible.

How was the first meeting?

A meal was organized with the commissioner who was directing me and the two actors, Mehdi Nebbou and Marie Denarnaud, who was to interpret the role of the commissioner.

I had to mention my personal experience of the profession.

At the end, the team asked us to help them with the scenarios.

We had to read them again and give them credibility.

In the beginning, it was mostly technical work.

And your role, in the elaboration of this fiction, has evolved…

Mehdi Nebbou asked me to coach him directly.

He wanted his character to ring true and immerse himself in the role in the register of the Actors studio.

We spent hours working and the chemistry took.

We became good friends and my investment in this series became bigger and bigger.

I found myself on the set to give my opinion.

One thing leading to another, I became part of the team.

To the point of signing a fixed-price author contract with the production house.

I will even play a small role in season 3.

How did you experience this dive into the world of fiction?

I entered it as the virgin of the band.

I didn't know anything about it, but I was pleasantly surprised by the recognition of the production and the respect from everyone.

I had the opportunity to meet different directors.

And, it's very strange but, when I watch each episode, I find the sensitivity of each or each one.

What is your opinion on this series?

I really like the duo that Mehdi Nebbou forms with Audrey Fleurot who plays Morgane: it's the white clown and Auguste.

To be able to believe in the character of Morgane, it is necessary to believe in that of Karadec.

In a detective fiction, the part of reality is primordial otherwise nobody believes in it.

And in this kind of series, the spectator can zap as quickly as he is passionate.

Generally, do you like detective series?

As a professional, I can't help but have a critical eye.

For me, the perfect reference is

, always credible and very well documented.

But the best detective series of all time, it is to come.

You have been retired for a few weeks, does this experience give you ideas for the future?

I would love to collaborate on film projects, but I don't feel entitled to it yet.

In the meantime, I would like to write, to use the 30 years of archives that I have in my head.

At the judicial police, we collect a lot.

I need to collect the memories and restore them.

Is it the profession that causes this?

This job taught me a lot about people, but also a lot about myself.

When you interrogate a criminal, you manage to perceive the human through the monster.

These are weird feelings.

I no longer keep any of the convictions I had when I joined the police.

I thought there were the bad guys and the good guys with clear boundaries.

However, the world is not Manichean.

It is obviously much more complex than the one I thought I perceived in my youth.

Why did you choose to join the police?

A bit like Serpico, the New York cop.

When I was little, one day when I came home from school, I came across a crowd.

No one could see what was happening.

And then a guy came and the crowd parted.

I said to myself: “He knows.

One day, I too want to know and be at the heart of what is happening”.

Our ordinary policeman is the extraordinary of others.

Is that what you want to put in writing?

To write is to put one's obsessions in order, to free oneself from the burden one has in one's wallet, from the darkness one has accumulated.

Some cases have marked me so much that I want to tell them from the inside, with the necessary part of romance, of course.

What particularly interests me is to show the humanity that exists within the judicial police, but also within the police in general.

The impact of cases, such as child murders or bombings, on the police is rarely shown.

We explain very little how much it can affect, even traumatize.

I will see all my life, in the beam of my lamp, in the middle of the night, the foot of a little girl who had been buried in a wood.

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• Television

• Lille

• Hauts-de-France

• Series

• Policeman

• Federal police