Our taxi left central Paris behind some 20 minutes ago. We are now on the autoroute, speeding through an endless grey hinterland of zones industrielles, a cold rain lashing against the windscreen. I am sitting in the back, sandwiched between two French journalists, TV critics from Le Monde and Sud Ouest, neither of whom is enthused by the day ahead. "So, neither of you has even heard of the British TV series The Office?" I venture. Shrugs. "It was really successful in England," I say. Silence.

We pull up in a cul-de-sac of run-down office blocks in Aulnay- sous-bois, a grim Parisian banlieue that was set alight in last year's French riots. A motorway flyover thunders overhead a few metres away.