If you think of plotting a kidnapping, don't demand a ransom of a million.
This too round figure is the signature of amateurs.
For Laurent Combalbert, this is proof that he has a bruise on the phone.
It will only make you mouthful.
Goat supplied, bald head, he opens his door, apologizing for his fatigue.
Stéphanie, his companion and partner, slides behind him, a vine with a warm smile.
48 hours that the duo did not sleep.
A hostage-taking in South America kept them busy for two nights in front of the screens, talking from a distance.
They tell it like others would apologize for the mess on the coffee table.
With them, everything is in order.
The wooden house, bristling with solar panels, is hidden at the end of the Yonne.
Under the awning, a black Jeep awaits its next adventure, alongside an electric sedan.
At the end of the alley, a French flag on its mast, barracks style, completes the picture.
In the countryside the rumor gallops.
A spy would be installed in Villeneuve-les-Genêts.
He digs holes, plants trees.
There is even talk of a helipad ...
Five years member of the Raid before the "council" in security
The gossip draws on a fund of truth.
Laurent Combalbert is a negotiator.
His gaze, a stiffness in the pace confirm the other lines of his CV.
He was a policeman, special operations ascendant.
Five years at the Raid, this super cops service that tumbles when the madmen threaten to blow everything up.
He then joined a "consulting firm" attached to the Ministry of the Interior, then set up his company.
For more than 15 years, he has adapted his expertise to all terrains.
Renault's first competitiveness agreements?
He was there.
“Six months of secret preparation, super interesting.
He has helped doctors convince their patients to follow their treatments.
At the first assaults of the Covid, Combalbert and his team debriefed nurses and doctors from a Paris hospital every week, to "purge the emotions".
He didn't charge.
Insurance companies regularly call on him to get out of the trap of expatriates with big companies or NGO officials, taken hostage in unstable areas.
Afghanistan, Lebanon, Mali… He negotiates the ransom, then lets the criminals go.
Combalbert, seated on the edge of the designer sofa, puts down his espresso cup.
“For a former cop, it's crazy.
But when we see the hostage return home and his family fall into his arms, it makes up for… ”
Bad memories in Colombia
In Colombia, the man in black almost got caught by the Farc.
He swallowed his jitters.
And amazed: no negotiator would come to bring any more money, if he was eliminated.
Back at the hotel, he rushed to the gym to “screw everything up”.
Even today, the breath of anguish freezes his neck when he thinks about it.
In his office, where “150 lives have been saved” in recent years, an artificial fireplace, the view of the oak trees, the smell of hot coffee keep stress at bay.
The library houses permaculture treatises and a hidden handle.
Stéphanie shoots, discovers the "secret room".
The couple stored jars, weapons and their archives there.
Laurent Combalbert, former Raid negotiator, works with his partner Stéphanie Furtos-Combalbert.
LP / Olivier Corsan
Like in a thriller?
Laurent resolved to write one.
He studied the terrain before taking the plunge.
He dismantled novels, dissected the mechanics of suspense, and built “Négo” with the bricks of true memories.
The hero's name is Stan, a tribute to Jean-Paul Belmondo from “Flic ou Voyou” by Georges Lautner.
One of his favorite films.
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A dream double?
Apart from the build of a sportsman, the negotiator has nothing of the cabotin all in instinct of the time “badaboum, here I am”.
His love of precision propels him rather towards these screens where one poses without smiling, arms crossed, in a decoration of glass and metal.
The Ransom series, broadcast in 2017 on TF1, is directly inspired by Combalbert.
He was a “technical advisor” on the set.
One more activity.
Practical books, courses and conferences in shambles… The mark of “former Raid trained in the FBI” is also a cash machine which annoys, in the navy blue ranks.
"He has kept good relations in the upper hierarchy, but at the bottom, he is rather frowned upon, cafte a former colleague.
Men do not like to use the image of the Raid.
"Critics no longer have a hold, Combalbert fades away:" I'm tired of living on trains and planes.
I was 50 years old, it is a pivot.
From now on, I want to inspire and transmit.
The little fellow from Comminges, the son of a soldier, now clings to deeper roots.
"I find him appeased"
The Combalberts no longer have a particle, but have retained their coat of arms: an oak framed by two bees.
Quite naturally, Laurent baptized his domain “Sylvanie”, in reference to the middle name, Sylvain, worn by all the men in the family for 300 years.
Groups will be coming soon, for seminars on crisis management and self-confidence.
For a while, we laughed in the village.
Another naive who will return to Paris soon.
A year has passed.
We don't laugh anymore.
“It gives hope.
A man like him who settles here is proof that we can make plans, ”says Richard Jaskot.
The new mayor of Villeneuve-les-Genêts received express training in the management of debates and conflicts.
The "com'com" had better watch out.
“Laurent is a sort of modern-day hero.
He served the state in the shadows, now he is dedicated to a project in which he believes.
He returns to the province he should never have left.
I find it appeased, ”said his friend Stéphane Volant, the manager of Vélib ', who has set up his country house 10 km away.
Before heading off to pick up the youngest from college, Stéphanie walks around the owner, her young dog on her heels.
There are six huts for visitors, a huge vegetable garden, a wooden sauna, 3,000 new trees planted by the couple's recomposed tribe - between them, they have five children.
On the ground, there are three doors, like airlocks.
The entrance to the bunker?
Stephanie laughs.
“These are green fridges!
Combalbert read the collapsologists, but he gave up preparing for the end of the world.
“I am an optimist.
And if the world is to disappear, I'd rather die with it than spend years underground.
Never a hostage, not even of his fears.
