television channels, FR3-Franche-Comté
and FR3-Haute-Normandie, aiming to squeeze the maximum
number of sales out of tomorrow’s edition of the newspaper. The
strategy was to tantalise the public with a few details on television
that evening, so that they would want to read the full, exclusive
interview with the Vitrals on page two of the Est Républicain the
following morning.
The brief bulletins on regional television were taken up that
evening by the nationals. A team from TF1 even caught Léonce
de Carville on his driveway, in Coupvray, before his lawyers had
time to interpose themselves and tell him to say nothing more. His
words threw oil on the media fire.
No, he did not deny it.
Yes, he had offered money to the Vitral family.
Yes, he was absolutely convinced that the miracle child was his
granddaughter, Lyse-Rose. He had acted out of pure generosity
towards the Vitrals, or pity – the two sentiments intricately interlinked to him. God, of course, had been kind to his family. He
could not behave otherwise.
The next day – 19 February, 1981 – he went even further, announcing live on the ten o’clock news: ‘If there is any doubt about the
identity of the child, if the truth is uncertain, then obviously the
judge is going to make his decision based on the child’s best interests. If it were possible, the baby would make the decision herself.
And, if that were the case, who could possibly doubt that this infant
would choose the future I am offering her, rather than that offered
by the Vitral family?’
Through working on this case, I have learned how the media operates. It is like a giant snowball thrown down a mountainside, and
once it starts rolling, no one can control its direction or velocity. If
you remember anything at all about the ‘Dragonfly’ case, then this
is almost certainly the moment that would stick in your memory;
the few weeks that preceded the judgement. Between February and
March 1981, it was – with the obvious exception of the presidential
election campaign – the dominant news story. France was divided
in two. It was, in the crudest possible terms, a battle between the
rich and the poor. So two unequal sides. If you split France in
two along the line of the average salary, there are far more people
below that line than above it, therefore the vast majority of French
people supported the cause of the Vitral family. They made frequent
appearances on television, the radio, and in the newspapers and it
was sensational: a soap opera with an unscripted ending.
De Carville had to shoulder the role of the villain. Around this
time, the American series Dallas had just started screening in France.
Léonce de Carville did not resemble J.R. Ewing in any physical
sense, but the parallel was unmissable. And, as in the series, there
was every chance that the bad guy was going to win.
Suspense. Emotion.
Perhaps you were supporting one side or the other back then?
I wasn’t. At the time, I couldn’t have cared less about the ‘Dragonfly’ case. In February 1981, I was still busy with the casino affair; I
had moved from the Basque coast to the Côte d’Azur and the Italian Riviera. I spent my whole life in my car, on stake-out: a boring
job with ever diminishing returns. I do remember catching a brief
glimpse of a TV programme – some sort of reality show before such
things were invented – late one night while I was relaxing in my
hotel room. Nicole Vitral was being interviewed. It was she who
had increasingly taken over the family’s dealings with the media.
Pierre Vitral may have set the machine in motion, but it had left
him behind and now he shunned the cameras. Given the choice,
he might well have called a halt to the entire media circus and let
justice take its course, even at the risk of losing.
Nicole Vitral must have been about forty-seven at the time.
She was a young grandmother, not really beautiful in the classical
sense of the term,
and FR3-Haute-Normandie, aiming to squeeze the maximum
number of sales out of tomorrow’s edition of the newspaper. The
strategy was to tantalise the public with a few details on television
that evening, so that they would want to read the full, exclusive
interview with the Vitrals on page two of the Est Républicain the
following morning.
The brief bulletins on regional television were taken up that
evening by the nationals. A team from TF1 even caught Léonce
de Carville on his driveway, in Coupvray, before his lawyers had
time to interpose themselves and tell him to say nothing more. His
words threw oil on the media fire.
No, he did not deny it.
Yes, he had offered money to the Vitral family.
Yes, he was absolutely convinced that the miracle child was his
granddaughter, Lyse-Rose. He had acted out of pure generosity
towards the Vitrals, or pity – the two sentiments intricately interlinked to him. God, of course, had been kind to his family. He
could not behave otherwise.
The next day – 19 February, 1981 – he went even further, announcing live on the ten o’clock news: ‘If there is any doubt about the
identity of the child, if the truth is uncertain, then obviously the
judge is going to make his decision based on the child’s best interests. If it were possible, the baby would make the decision herself.
And, if that were the case, who could possibly doubt that this infant
would choose the future I am offering her, rather than that offered
by the Vitral family?’
Through working on this case, I have learned how the media operates. It is like a giant snowball thrown down a mountainside, and
once it starts rolling, no one can control its direction or velocity. If
you remember anything at all about the ‘Dragonfly’ case, then this
is almost certainly the moment that would stick in your memory;
the few weeks that preceded the judgement. Between February and
March 1981, it was – with the obvious exception of the presidential
election campaign – the dominant news story. France was divided
in two. It was, in the crudest possible terms, a battle between the
rich and the poor. So two unequal sides. If you split France in
two along the line of the average salary, there are far more people
below that line than above it, therefore the vast majority of French
people supported the cause of the Vitral family. They made frequent
appearances on television, the radio, and in the newspapers and it
was sensational: a soap opera with an unscripted ending.
De Carville had to shoulder the role of the villain. Around this
time, the American series Dallas had just started screening in France.
Léonce de Carville did not resemble J.R. Ewing in any physical
sense, but the parallel was unmissable. And, as in the series, there
was every chance that the bad guy was going to win.
Suspense. Emotion.
Perhaps you were supporting one side or the other back then?
I wasn’t. At the time, I couldn’t have cared less about the ‘Dragonfly’ case. In February 1981, I was still busy with the casino affair; I
had moved from the Basque coast to the Côte d’Azur and the Italian Riviera. I spent my whole life in my car, on stake-out: a boring
job with ever diminishing returns. I do remember catching a brief
glimpse of a TV programme – some sort of reality show before such
things were invented – late one night while I was relaxing in my
hotel room. Nicole Vitral was being interviewed. It was she who
had increasingly taken over the family’s dealings with the media.
Pierre Vitral may have set the machine in motion, but it had left
him behind and now he shunned the cameras. Given the choice,
he might well have called a halt to the entire media circus and let
justice take its course, even at the risk of losing.
Nicole Vitral must have been about forty-seven at the time.
She was a young grandmother, not really beautiful in the classical
sense of the term,
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