Last year saw Jean-Francois Richet’s L’instinct de Mort, a gritty and classy gangster movie about Jacques Mesrine, France’s Public Enemy No. 1 in the Seventies. Music-wise, French Punk rockers Trust payed tribute to Mesrine with two songs on their meanwhile classic 1980 album Répression, an angry blast of antisocial attitude and Stooges drive: Instinct de mort reflects on Mesrine’s autobiography of the same title, and Le Mitard (The Dungeon) is based on a poem written by Mesrine in the maximum-security wing of Fleury Merogis prison. Today, Mesrine’s image has changed quite grotesquely; his autobiography was re-published in Flammarion’s Pop Culture program line (see right).
Trust – Le Mitard