«Nicotine isn’t addictive». These words are the ones that the tobacco industry’s seven most important leaders pronounced in front of the United States Congress. It was April 4th, 1994. Four years later, they had to pay a $200 billion fine and to make their archives public. Deep inside these millions of pages that were classified as «confidential », the whole world learned of a large-scale strategy of disinformation and manipulation. Infiltration of advertising and science, political lobbying, pressure on journalists: complex mecanisms were put in place to create a smokescreen of lies for 40 years...

«Gentlemen, our conversation is over. I didn’t think we would stoop to such a degree of despicability. » The offended man speaking these words was François Mitterrand, the French President at the time. In March 1993, two journalists questioned him on the Elysée Palace wiretapping scandal which had just come to light. The President of the Republic denied everything and was disparaging. Who set up this formidable STASI-style intelligence mechanism? Who was pulling the strings? How did this hidden cabinet work? It would take almost twenty years of investigations to get to the bottom of this large-scale spying organisation.