Julie Lescaut

Main character: : Commissaire Julie Lescaut
Country of origin: France
Main location: Les Clairières (fictional suburban town near Paris) and Paris

Creator: Alexis Lecaye (pseudonym: Alexandre Terrel)
Born in: Alexandra, Egypt
Born on: 1951
Nationality: French

Literary series started in: 1992, Julie Lescaut
Original language: French
Publisher: Le Masque
Translation: No

Television series started in: 1992
Producer: GMT (Lagardère) for TF1
Number of seasons: 22
Latest season broadcast: 2014
Transnational distribution: Yes

Novelisation:

Tableau noir

Author: Christine Arnaud
Published in: 1995
Publisher: J’ai lu (Paris, France)

Charité bien ordonnée

Author: Christine Arnaud
Pubished in: 1999
Publisher: J’ai lu (Paris, France)

Case study rationale: 

Commissaire Julie Lescaut is the protagonist of a crime fiction series created by Alexis Lecaye for TF1 that lasted from 1992 to 2014. Julie Lescaut, played by Véronique Genest, is one of the most important female detectives of French television along with Une Femme d’honneur (Isabelle Florent/Corinne Touzet). Thanks to the longevity of the Julie Lescaut series, Véronique Genest is one of the few French actresses over 50 on French TV (Arbogast, 2015). ) Presented as both a strong woman who is promoted to chief officer in a suburban town–Les Clairières, where she manages a team of 24 policemen and 9 inspectors–and a single mother of two daughters (Sarah and Babou), Julie Lescaut has been described as an example of “a popular feminism” (Sellier, 2010). In the series, Lescaut’s professional and private lives are interwoven. Her character embodies the emancipated heterosexual white mother, whose privilege is associated to her position as a paid civil servant (Sarah Lécossais, 2016). According to the “mimetic realism” promised to the spectators by the broadcasting channels, Julie Lescaut is a “human” and “accessible” character (Jost, 2001), which makes her one of the most long-lasting heroic figures on French TV. She is a perfect mother, divorced but still in a friendly relationship with her ex-husband, and an empathic boss. An “edifying heroic figure” character (Lafon, 2012), she almost appears to be a kind of a mythical “superwoman”. This probably explains why the French TV channel CNEWS confused reality with fantasy when Véronique Genest was interviewed  as an expert on police racism and violence in a news broadcast on June 2020.

Online research resources

Watch

Julie Lescaut first generic, TF1, 1992 [in French]:

 Julie Lescaut trailer [in French]:

 Julie Lescaut last episode: “Mère et filles”, 23/01/2014 [in French]:

Interview to Véronique Genest about her carrier and her character Julie Lescaut, C à Vous, 2019 [in French]:

Browse 

 Fan Blog of Julie Lescaut

Read

• Sepulchre, Sarah. “Julie Lescaut “, Aux frontières des séries. 3 Nov. 2004. Web.
• Arbogast, Mathieu. “Plus de leur âge ? La sexualité des femmes de 50 ans dans les séries TV au début du XXIe siècle”, Clio. Femmes, Genre, Histoire 42 (2015): 165-179.
• Lécossais, Sarah. “La fabrique des mères imaginaires dans les séries télévisées françaises (1992-2012)”, Genre, sexualité & société 16 (2016). Web.
• Sellier, Geneviève.  “Cultural Studies, gender et études filmiques”. Cultural Studies: Genèse, objets, traductions. Ed. Maxime Cervulle, Jade Lindgaard, Éric Macé et al. Paris : Éditions de la Bibliothèque publique d’information, 2010. 38-41.
• Sepulchre, Sarah. “6. Policier/scientifique, féminin/masculin dans les séries télévisées : Dépolarisation des caractérisations et réflexion sur les outils d’analyse”. L’assignation de genre dans les médias: Attentes, perturbations, reconfigurations. Ed. Béatrice Damian-Gaillard, Sandy Montañola and Aurélie Olivesi. Rennes : Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2014. 93-107.
• Lafon, Benoit. “Des fictions ‘toutes proches’: une certaine identité de la France. Enjeux politiques des séries télévisées de France 3 en prime time (Louis la Brocante, Famille d’accueil, Un village français)”, Mots. Les langages du politique 99 (2012): 79-95.
• Jost, François. “Séries policieres et stratégies de programmation”, Réseaux 109.5 (2001): 148-170. 

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