Hard-hitting drama Oussekine follows the aftermath of a murder

On a December night in 1986, the city of light is incandescent with the rage of student protesters and Molotov cocktails. A young Franco-Algerian man, Malik Oussekine, is out on the streets, uninterested in the chaos unfolding around him. He has just seen Nina Simone perform live and is still too entranced to realise that the police are prowling and looking for a fight. Sure enough, he crosses paths with some officers for whom dark skin is enough of a provocation. They hunt him down and beat him to death.

Oussekine, a hard-hitting new French drama on Disney Plus, follows the aftermath of the murder of the 22-year-old from both the perspective of his grieving family and the police who attempt to obscure the facts surrounding his death. Although set 35 years ago, the mini-series scarcely feels like a step into the past. The story it tells about brutal, bigoted law enforcement, xenophobia and nativism is, sadly, as timely as ever.

But the show is careful not to lose sight of the individual tragedy within the broader political context. One of its main concerns is the manner in which Malik is appropriated by protesters and politicians as a martyr for their own causes. “[He] means so much now to so many people,” says the prosecuting lawyer, as he tries to persuade the victim’s family to be more visible and let the nation share in their sorrow. In this way they lose a son and brother for a second time.

The ensuing media circus leaves the Oussekines vulnerable to racist taunts, smears and even violent assaults. The police show no compassion or contrition; when coming to identify the body, Malik’s older brother Ben Amar finds himself under interrogation. “We’re French,” he insists, incredulously, when he’s asked about his sibling’s possible ties to an Arab terrorist organisation. “It’s [my] fault for letting them believe [that],” says Malik’s mother Aïcha (Succession’s Hiam Abbass) as each of her children — who we see teasing her for her heavy Algerian accent in flashbacks — become disabused of the notion that liberté, égalité, fraternité extends to them.

Consisting of four hour-long episodes, the series could almost be watched in a single viewing. But where the similarly-themed film La Haine burnt with a febrile intensity, Oussekine has the time to go for the heart as well as the gut. It asks for our fury against cruel and unjust systems but also our compassion for this family who endured so much.

★★★★☆

On Disney Plus from May 11

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