''Paris Police 1900'' is a French

crime drama Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combin ...

television series created by Fabien Nury that was first broadcast on 8 February 2021 on

Canal+ Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

in France and was shown on BBC Four in October 2021. A follow-up series of six episodes, featuring the same characters and called , was released in 2022.

Synopsis

In 1899 in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, the Third Republic is in crisis again. Amid civic unrest fuelled by rumours of the impending release of Alfred Dreyfus, the government is under threat from

nationalists Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...

royalists A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of governm ...

and

anti-Semites Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

on one hand and from

anarchists Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessari ...

on the other. The situation is made worse by the sudden death of the

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Félix Faure Félix François Faure (; 30 January 1841 – 16 February 1899) was the President of France from 1895 until his death in 1899. A native of Paris, he worked as a tanner in his younger years. Faure became a member of the Chamber of Deputies for ...

. It is against this background that Antoine Jouin, an ambitious young detective of the Police Prefecture, is assigned to investigate the dismembered torso of a young woman found in a suitcase floating down the Seine. In the course of the investigation, Jouin encounters

Louis Lépine Louis Jean-Baptiste Lépine (1846 - 1933) was a lawyer, politician and inventor who was Préfet de Police with the Paris Police Prefecture from 1893 to 1897 and again from 1899 to 1913. He earned the nickname of "The Little Man with the Big Stick" ...

(retired Prefect of Police, recalled to restore order in Paris), Jeanne Chauvin (the second woman in France to obtain a law degree and to be licensed to plead at the bar) and Meg Steinheil (a notorious ''

demimondaine is French for "half-world". The term derives from a play called , by Alexandre Dumas , published in 1855. The play dealt with the way that prostitution at that time threatened the institution of marriage. The was the world occupied by elite me ...

'' turned

police informant An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a “snitch”) is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law-enforcement world, where informant ...

). All become involved in the suppression of a more serious plot: a threatened coup against the Republic, orchestrated by the Guérin family. Connections are discovered between the dead woman and the police, in the form of rogue officer Joseph Fiersi, as well as with the aristocratic Gabriel Sabran de Pontevès and his family.

Cast

* : Antoine Jouin, inspired by (or precursor of) Louis-François Jouin, policeman killed by

Jules Bonnot Jules Joseph Bonnot (October 14, 1876 – April 28, 1912) was a French bank robber famous for his involvement in a criminal anarchist organization dubbed "The Bonnot Gang" by the French press. He viewed himself as a professional A professio ...

in 1912. * Évelyne Brochu :

Marguerite Steinheil Marguerite Jeanne "Meg" Japy Steinheil, Baroness Abinger (16 April 1869 – 17 July 1954) was a French woman known for her many love affairs with important men. She was present at the death of President Félix Faure, who was rumored to have ...

* Thibaut Évrard : Joseph Fiersi *

Marc Barbé Marc Barbé (born 6 May 1961) is a French film actor. He has appeared in more than fifty films. Selected filmography References External links * 1961 births Living people Actors from Nancy, France French male film actors {{Fr ...

* Eugénie Derouand : Jeanne Chauvin * Patrick d'Assumçao : Commissaire Puybaraud * Alexandre Trocki : Commissaire Cochefert * Hubert Delattre : Jules Guérin * Valérie Dashwood : Mme Lépine * Yannick Landrein :

Sébastien Faure Sébastien Faure (6 January 1858 – 14 July 1942) was a French anarchist, freethought and secularist activist and a principal proponent of synthesis anarchism. Biography Before becoming a free-thinker, Faure was a seminarist. He engage ...

* Jean-Benoît Ugeux : Morpinet * Christophe Montenez : Gabriel Sabran de Pontevès * Christian Hecq : Alphonse Bertillon * Astrid Roos : Hélène Chagnolle * Vincent Debost : Hector *

Anthony Paliotti Anthony or Antony is a masculine given name, derived from the ''Antonii'', a ''gens'' ( Roman family name) to which Mark Antony (''Marcus Antonius'') belonged. According to Plutarch, the Antonii gens were Heracleidae, being descendants of Anton, ...

: Louis Guérin * Anne Benoit : Maman Guérin * Renaud Rutten : Alphonse Chagnolle * Nicolas Bouchaud : Weidmann * Dan Herzberg : Jeannot Dornet *

Yann Collette Yann Collette (born 14 April 1956) is a French actor. He appeared in more than sixty films since 1979. Selected filmography References External links * 1956 births Living people French male film actors {{France-film-actor-s ...

: le comte Sabran de Pontevès * Steve Driesen :

Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau Pierre Marie René Ernest Waldeck-Rousseau (; 2 December 184610 August 1904) was a French Republican politician who served as the Prime Minister of France. Early life Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau was born in Nantes, Brittany. His father, René W ...

* Olivier Pajot :

Marie-Armelle Deguy Marie-Armelle Deguy is a French actress, the daughter of poet and essayist Michel Deguy. Filmography Cinema *1988: ''La Septième dimension'' by Laurent Dussaux *1988: ''Zanzibar'' by Christine Pascal *1988: '' L'Enfance de l'art'' by F ...

: la comtesse de Vaudois * Noam Morgensztern : Gustave Pertaud * Eddie Chignara :

Édouard Drumont Édouard Adolphe Drumont (3 May 1844 – 5 February 1917) was a French antisemitic journalist, author and politician. He initiated the Antisemitic League of France in 1889, and was the founder and editor of the newspaper ''La Libre Parole''. ...

* Renaud Hezeques : l'inspecteur Guichard * Raphaël Thiéry : Mimile

Episode list

Reception

The show was widely praised by critics, with Phil Harrison, for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', describing it as "A classy, raunchy Parisian noir... A promising mixture of high intrigue and low cunning."

References

External links

* * 2021 French television series debuts Canal+ original programming French-language television shows French police procedural television series Television series set in the 1900s Television shows filmed in France Television shows set in Paris {{France-tv-prog-stub