With An Ordinary Man, M6 is broadcasting a new free adaptation of the Dupont de Ligonnès affair carried by Arnaud Ducret in the skin of the number 1 suspect in this fivefold murder which still fascinates nearly 10 years later.

[Updated September 15, 2020 at 8:30 p.m.] In four episodes, M6 proposes to return to the Nantes killings in April 2011, this fivefold murder which fascinated the whole of France and raised many questions around Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, father of the murdered family and untraceable number 1 suspect in this case. At the head of a new fictional adaptation, Arnaud Ducret plays Christophe de Salin, a role very inspired by Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès but whose name has not been retained to avoid legal problems for the chain. Still untraceable, the father of the family is still the privileged suspect of the investigators. Why would he murder his family? How did he escape? Is he still alive or did he commit suicide? Questions to which the fiction of M6 tries to answer by the voice of fiction rather than documentary.

While he is best known for sketches and comic roles in the cinema, Arnaud Ducret was chosen to play the inspired role of the father of a family suspected of having coldly executed his family. Pierre Aknin, creator and director of the series for M6, explained his choice on the airwaves of Europe 1. It was first his daughter, producer of the four-part fiction, who offered him to meet the actor . Then it all came down to the meeting: "When he walked into the restaurant, it was physically... It's not that he looked like him, it's that there was a deep energy that told me 'but it's him, you don't even have to insist.' And the meal did exactly what I expected."

In an interview for Télé 2 Semaines, Arnaud Ducret explains that he focused on "trying to understand this incredible character who committed this act and trying to say how he got there." According to him, Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès was "someone quite lonely because to undertake it you have to be in a parallel world a little" even if he insists on recalling that he "is presumed innocent but, despite everything , a lot of things can make you think that it was he who passed some acts.

If Arnaud Ducret makes this reminder it is because there is indeed a legal risk in depicting a fiction inspired by an unresolved news item. Pierre Aknine explains it to Paris Match: "We had to change the names and places for legal issues. It's not Nantes but Lyon and they are called Salin, but let's be clear: we are talking about Ligonnès. he irony is that today, the only person who could attack us is Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès!"

Born December 6, 1974 in Rouen, Arnaud Ducret is a French humorist and actor. In the 2000s, the public began to know him through sketches in Morning Live on M6. On the Six, he obtains a role in Caméra Café 2, a short format sequel to Caméra Café which will end after a season of 120 3-minute episodes. In the early 2010s, his career exploded everywhere, both on stage in his one-man shows and on television in TV movies and especially the Parents mode d'emploi series where he plays Father Martinet. In the cinema, he began a long series of roles in popular comedies including Les Profs but also Gaston Lagaffe or The New Adventures of Cinderella.