Fingerprint readings, searches for clues, autopsies, ballistics, high-tech tools worthy of “Experts” or “NCIS”… it almost feels like a TV series. Yet this is the daily life of the sixteen students of this unique school in Europe.

“We were taken to task at the Saint-Joseph establishment, there are several injured, perhaps dead…Ask for your help”. The alert is given by Gaëtan Sonnois, the logistics manager and the director of the immersive exercises of the Bachelor in Forensic Science at the Saint-Joseph La Salle school group in Lorient in Morbihan.

Immediately, help intervened. “Ah… my leg! I have a bullet in my leg! Don't let me die” Cries ring out in the park of the Saint-Joseph-La-Salle school, disarticulated bodies lie at the foot of car wrecks. Everywhere, in the trees, on the ground, bloody limbs.

The firefighters, played by the professional security trades, run in all directions and evacuate the injured in an emergency. Even if it's an exercise, the tension is palpable as this scene of a terrorist attack is hyperrealistic.

Once the area has been secured and the explosive belts have been neutralized, it is now up to the forensic science students to enter the scene. They quickly put on their famous white suits, which make them look like astronauts.

"Try to see if there are surveillance cameras that were able to film the scene, try to take as many photos as possible of the people also around, so that we can identify them more easily", Naïka, 21, the chef team, gives orders on the fly.

The young woman, from Paris, holds a DUT in analytical and synthetic chemistry. Since she was a child, she has dreamed of joining the scientific police.

Like her, the sixteen students first discovered forensic science through television, series and crime novels. The reality is more complex and the spectrum of knowledge required is enormous.

According to Didier Sonnois, the co-creator of this bachelor's degree, forensic science "is all the sciences that exist in the service of forensic science and crime scene analysis". The goal is to collect all the evidence to prosecute the perpetrator of an offence. “This may be with the help of forensic medicine, toxicology, accidentology, chemistry, electricity, mechanics…”, details Didier Sonnois.

The quest for truth

Students come from all over France to participate in this training. They are mainly girls. Some students hold master's degrees, others have bachelor's degrees, in biology, chemistry, life and earth sciences, pharmaceuticals, etc. The youngest, in their early twenties, have long had a vocation to join the scientific police.

"I first turned to psychology, then criminology and I finally realized that forensic science was more what interested me", explains Camille, 23. "I want to to be useful, to participate in an investigation and to contribute to the common good". The most difficult thing for her is to be confronted with death.

Auguste does not leave his tablet and digital pen to take notes. This technology enthusiast hates detective series but is also driven by the desire to solve crime scenes: "what I like is the quest for the truth, helping people, that's what attracts me really. Telling me that people who have lost a loved one, thanks to our work, will know why."

Others, like Martial, 39, the only one from Lorient in the group, have more atypical career paths. "I worked for 10 years as a department manager in mass distribution. I had done the rounds and I decided to completely change direction".

The only training in Europe

Today, no similar course exists in France and more broadly in the European Union. To train, until now professionals had to go to the School of Criminal Sciences in Lausanne in Switzerland or to the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivières.

However, these courses do not have immersive exercises as offered by the Bachelor of Lorient. This university degree was launched at the start of the school year in September 2020 by two retired gendarmerie officers, Thierry Lezeau and Didier Sonnois.

Both have CVs as long as your arm and have taken part in cases with international repercussions such as the sinking of the Bugaled Breizh, the disappearance of Doctor Godard and his family, or the murder of Caroline Dickinson.

Cases in which forensic experts have played a key role. The two gendarmes have since joined forces with Forensic Consulting France and are trainers for magistrates and police officers, mainly in Africa.

The two experts are also consultants for Interpol and UNODC, the branch of the UN specializing in the fight against crime and drug trafficking. For Didier Sonnois, this Bachelor in forensic science was a necessity: "This training is important because it prepares for the competitions of the gendarmerie and the scientific police. The students have access to the latest technologies, the most advanced. They even handle tools to which a gendarme will not have access in his career”

Jacques Pradel, sponsor of the class

Cost of this training: 9500 euros for more than 800 hours of lessons. During this 10-month course, students will witness autopsies, take fingerprints, analyze DNA in the lab, learn to shoot firearms, study ballistics, perform on-scene exercises mass killings, fires or road accidents...

About thirty specialists intervene in this way during the year. Like Christophe Ledon, an expert in accidentology who has worked on major road disasters such as the Puisseguin tragedy which caused the death of 43 people in 2015.

On this day, he teaches students how to take action at the scene of an accident, interrogate a vehicle's black box, and develop a plan that will be useful for the forensic investigation. He is supported by Pierre-Alain Loezic, a technician from the ECR Environnement company based in Larmor Plage in Morbihan.

The latter teaches students how to handle a 3D scanner. A device that allows to reconstruct in digital images the unfolding of a crime or accident scene. The training is also placed under the sponsorship of personalities, such as the former journalist Jacques Pradel this year, and the judge Renauld Van Ruymbeke for the past promotion.

For the Saint-Joseph La Salle school group in Lorient, it is also a showcase, which is destined to grow more and more, as explained by Marc Suteau, the head of the establishment: "Next year we should welcome foreign students and we are going to strengthen our collaboration with the University of Cergy Pontoise, which will develop a school similar to ours at the start of the school year in September 2022. There is strong demand from students."

The first promotion has just taken part in the scientific gendarmerie competition. Each year, only a few dozen positions need to be filled in the police and gendarmerie. But these "experts" have the wind in their sails. Their profile is also of interest to laboratories or insurance companies.