Television. "Murders in Épinal": This TV star will star in the episode filmed in the Vosges mountains.

Less "Murders in..." expands its collection of bloody but very local crimes. We know a little more about "Murders in Épinal," which will be filmed in the Vosges mountains next September.

It was Anne Holmes, director of fiction at France Télévisions, who lifted the pall over the story which will take place in Epinal in an interview with Le Parisien .

She first mentions the scenario: "a border police officer transferred to team up with a young female cop after a murder at the Musée de l'Imagerie in Épinal." The local emblem will therefore be at the center of the fiction and the investigation, but in the same interview, the chief organizer of these murders throughout France gives the name of the person who will play this police officer.

The first role of the episode, but also the first role of his life, for a TV host well-known to viewers of France 2 and TF1: Patrick Sabatier. Following in the footsteps of the "guests" of recent years, starting with Stéphane Bern in "Meurtres en Lorraine" in 2018 or, more recently, Jean-Pierre Foucault.

As for filming, Anne Holmes has announced it will begin in mid-September. A few days ago, the production team began looking for locations , as we announced on vosgesmatin.fr : a large family home, a modest house in Épinal, and a chalet overlooking a lake.

This is far from France Télévisions' first foray into the Grand Est region. The series "Meurtres à..." already came to Bitche in 2018, where Stéphane Bern investigated a body found in the citadel. There was also Nancy in 2022, where Christiane Reali found a dead woman in an Art Nouveau piece of furniture by Eugène Vallin, an episode that also featured the local host: Jérôme Anthony.

Finally, likely to air next season, "Meurtres à Bussang" will feature the Théâtre du Peuple and a beast that could resemble the Beast of the Vosges. The local police captain will be Pierre-François Martin-Laval.

At 73, is this a simple foray or a new career opening up for Patrick Sabatier? He is primarily a radio and TV host, with a career that began on Europe 1 and RTL in the 1970s.

It was in the 80s that he became a star with shows like "Avis de Recherche", "Le Jeu de la Vérité" (whose episodes with Coluche and Chantal Goya remain in the memory) and "Tous à la Une". These audiences every Friday evening on TF1 made him a must-see before his fall in the 90s and a return to mainstream success with the game "Mot de passe" on France 2 in the 2010s.

"Meurtres à Épinal" will in any case mark his first role and his return to television after his last collaboration with C8 in 2019.