French PM's political 'potboiler' to be turned into a film

A scathing political thriller co-written by the French prime minister, Edouard Philippe, is to be made into a film, his publisher said Monday.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe sits in the cockpit of Dassault Rafale fighter as he visits the 52nd Paris Air Show at Le Bourget Airport near Paris, France June 23, 2017. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol

"In the Shadows", which is set during the final days of a neck-and-neck French presidential election, is being adapted for the screen by one of the country's best-loved actors, Guillaume Gallienne, according to reports.

"It has been optioned to be adapted and the project has been launched," Philippe's publishers JC Lattes told AFP.

But they refused to divulge any other details of the screen version of the 2011 potboiler.

The book, which Philippe wrote with fellow right-wing political insider Gilles Boyer, caused a minor stir because of the sexism of its principal character, a cold, jaded political advisor known only at the Apparatchik.

Male chauvinism in the French political establishment has become a hot-button issue after incidents in which female MPs claimed to have been groped, whistled at or subjected to sexist comments in parliament.

Critics also wondered if the character's lusting after his party's spin doctor, its narrator calls "Marilyn", because of her attractiveness might be indicative of the prime minister's own sublimated desires.

"Everyone was wondering who the first member of parliament would be to get the trophy," the Apparatchik says of the all-male team's attempts to sleep with her.

Boyer, who wrote another thriller "The Hour of Truth" with Philippe in 2007, is set to join the prime minister's office as an advisor next month.

Philippe, mayor of the English Channel port of Le Havre and a member of the conservative Republicans party, defected to lead centrist President Emmanuel Macron's government after May's presidential election.

In another passage in the book, "neither left nor right" centrists like the president are wryly put in their place. "Negotiating with a centrist is like trying to catch an eel in a bowl of olive oil," the Apparatchik quips.

According to the Figaro newspaper, the rights to Philippe's novel have been bought by Elzevir Films, with Gallienne said to be directing the story.

Gallienne won two prizes at the Cannes film festival in 2013 with his crowd-pleasing "Garcons et Guillaume, a table!" which he not only wrote and directed, but played in as both a mummy-boy and his mother.

Elzevir Films refused to comment.