Marianne: You watched the last episode of the series “Tapie” in which he comes to see you in your Valenciennes prosecutor’s office… Did you find the fiction faithful to reality?
Eric de Montgolfier: I found it pleasant to watch. Everything is at the same time false and everything is at the same time more or less true. It’s all fake because nothing happened exactly like it did in the show. Especially the dialogues. The screenwriters created a sort of mosaic of comments that were made over time, either by me or by other magistrates during the criminal hearings in particular.
It was, for example, the investigating judge Bernard Beffy, who told Tapie that if he were elected president, he himself would only have to go into exile. And Advocate General Frémont, during the appeal trial, who began his indictment by saying “ he who lived by the image will perish by the image “. The dialogue in the series is therefore completely invented. But those who know nothing about this matter can have a reasonable approach to it.
How did this meeting, which took place in 1993, take place?
Some time before, I met one of Bernard Tapie’s lawyers in the investigating judge’s office. The judge told me that Bernard Tapie would like to meet me. I replied that I didn’t really understand the meaning of this meeting. Or that I understood it too well…