the Florence Cassez affair”, Netflix awakens the legal demons of Mexico
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NETFLIX – ON DEMAND – DOCUMENTARY SERIES
More than nine years after her release, the name of Florence Cassez still resonates on both sides of the Atlantic. The Mexicans discovered on the screens the face of this Frenchwoman on December 9, 2005. That morning, dozens of police “liberated” in “ live” three hostages on a ranch near Mexico City. “I have nothing to do with it! », proclaims the thirty-something in front of the television cameras. The young woman, originally from Béthune (Pas-de-Calais), will spend nearly seven years in a Mexican prison, causing a diplomatic crisis between Paris and Mexico City.
It took a decision of the Supreme Court of Mexico for justice to recognize, in 2013, the proven montage of his arrest. After two lost trials, the young woman sentenced to sixty years in prison will be released for procedural flaws. But not his former companion, Israel Vallarta, who is still behind bars without having been tried yet.
Broadcast on Netflix, the documentary series in five episodes, inspired by the work of the Mexican writer Jorge Volpi, A Mexican Novel: The Florence Cassez Affair (Seuil, 2019), retraces, step by step, this judicial imbroglio which lifts the veil on a police and penal system producing culprits in the name of the fight against kidnappings, a real national scourge.
This rigorous investigation gives, for the first time, a voice to all the players in one of the biggest media and legal scandals in the history of Mexico, including former Mexican presidents, Felipe Calderon (2006-2012), and French, Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-2012).
Diplomatic standoff
Their diplomatic standoff had led to thecancellation, in 2011, of the Year of Mexico in France. “It smelled of conspiracy, injustice and scheming”, declares in the Nicolas Sarkozy series. The poignant testimony of Florence Cassez, who now lives in Dunkirk, punctuates the key stages of the ” nightmare “ that she lived.
The thesis of the documentary unravels the threads of this state affair. From the revenge concocted by a crooked former associate of Florence’s brother, Sébastien Cassez, to the diabolical recovery by the ex-director of the Federal Investigation Agency, Genaro Garcia Luna, the investigation sheds light on a country in the grip of to corruption, abuse of power and other small arrangements between friends, in defiance of fundamental rights.
Having become President Calderon’s powerful Minister of Public Security, in charge of the fight against drug cartels, Mr. Garcia Luna will stop at nothing to keep Florence Cassez in prison: staging the arrest, inconsistencies in the file, manipulation of witnesses, torture… The tide will finally turn in favor of the Frenchwoman on the occasion of a change of government in the two countries.
Mr. Garcia Luna was arrested in 2019 in the United States, accused of drug trafficking. His right-hand man, Luis Cardenas Palomino, is imprisoned in Mexico for having tortured a brother and a nephew from Israel Vallarta, who are also still imprisoned, seventeen years after the events.
“The arrangement of the arrest has been recognized by the courts but it has marked millions of Mexicans who still believe Florence Cassez guilty”entrust to World Alejandro Gerber, screenwriter and producer of the series. He hopes his documentary “will reopen a debate on a case revealing a broken justice system that continues to send innocent people to prison”.
Identified guilty: the Florence Cassez caseby Alejandro Gerber (Mex., 2022, 5 X 60 min).
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