After the lost cop of "Bac Nord", you are, under the Occupation, transformed into a modest employee in a Parisian jewelry including the Jewish boss (Daniel Auteuil) told you the keys to escape the raids of the Germans.Do you like to play everything, even counter-employment?

Oui, pourquoi pas. J’essaie de me renouveler sans cesse. J’étais très heureux de retrouver Fred Cavayé avec lequel j’ai déjà tourné trois films, « À bout portant », « Mea Culpa » et un segment des « Infidèles ». Je n’ai pas vu la pièce à succès (quatre Molières, NDLR) de Jean -Philippe Daguerre pour avoir un regard neuf sur le sujet.. Quand Fred m’a appelé pour me dire que Daniel Auteuil avait lu le scénario en une heure et demie et qu’il voulait le rôle, j’étais vraiment heureux à l’idée de jouer avec un comédien que j’admire depuis mes vingt ans, à l’époque du Cour Florent.

However, you don't have the beautiful role ...

Yes, but I think that "Farewell Monsieur Haffmann" has an educational scope and invites a duty of memory.I have often asked myself the question of exploring the reasons that make a normal man a collaboration.What does it tell us about the occupation and our time?What courage in the face of fear?What would I have done at that time?So many interesting questions.

Who is your character, François Mercier?

An ordinary man who loves his wife (Sara Giraudeau) and aspires to a better life under German occupation.He loves his job in jewelry.He has nothing against his boss, but he will switch suddenly in evil and bastard.It is a type that has a revenge to take, personal, social, artistic.His boss has talent, and he, less.He did not go to war because he has a disabled leg.In addition, he discovers that he cannot have a child to his wife.It becomes embittered and greedy.And as she rightly says: "Before, we had nothing, now he wants everything".He is one of the people who are shamelessly built on the misfortune of others.

After the triumph of "small handkerchiefs" (5.5 million admissions), you found your boyfriend Guillaume Canet for the filming of "Asterix and Obelix: the Empire of the Middle".Obélix is you, after Gérard Depardieu.Not easy ?

Ah yes, I was really dead from succeeding him.Personally, I would never have had this idea.I told myself that it was perhaps pretentious and illegitimate on my part.

Really ?

Because, I consider that the one and only Obélix is him and that, until proven otherwise, I do not know an actor who can claim to equal Gérard Depardieu.Not a single one and therefore, even less me.So I was very, very, very frequent.There was not one day without being told the skeptical air: "So are you going to obelix after Gérard?"It's normal but I really didn't do it.I was on the verge of refusing.

Surprised by the success of "Bac Nord" which attracted more than 2.2 million spectators?

I did not expect that.This is a magnificent success all the more since the film has been postponed several times and it was released in the middle of August, which is not easy.Afterwards, the party was a little spoiled by the controversy that he was "pro police", then recovered by politicians, Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour in mind.We would have been frankly well.

Yet fiction invents nothing and joins a certain reality of the northern districts of Marseille, right?

Yes, there are problems, it is obvious but it was not the initial idea.We still stay in cinema and fiction with everything that represents mystification and magnification.

Success, difficult to manage?

No, I don't listen to him.For me, it's really an anesthetic and at the same time you should not forget that the public loves you and I am really delighted.But I don't want to self-stake.Success is sufficient recognition in itself.I would have paid to do this job.It’s an everyday miracle.

Does politics interest you?

Less and less.I have a lot of trouble understanding everything that is happening, the slump in which we swim and the absence of an emerging figure.And the Socialist Party unable to organize a primary.Everyone thinks of their career and it is the antithesis of socialism, sharing, what for what you campaign.

What about Eric Zemmour's candidacy?

I think we don't need a Zemmour to find out what's going on in real life.I don't know, but someone who was a TV columnist, polemicist, essayist recently who becomes a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, there is a little gap, right?….We still live a funny time.I am for democracy, all the most different, the most vehement, the most contradictory opinions, can be expressed but politics as Bernard Tapie said against Le Pen, is serious.

"Farewell Mr. Haffmann", indoors on January 12.