French stories of betrayal, paranoia and manipulation

The 1981 French movie Le Professional stars Jean-Paul Belmondo as a French agent dispatched to Africa to kill a president, then left in the lurch to be captured and tortured when the political winds shift, and assassination is no longer called for.

Didier Daeninckx's 1984 French crime novel Murder in Memoriam (available in English translation from Melville House) has a son looking for his missing father in a novel that "exposed the hidden crimes of a nation."

In the 1970 and '80s, Jean-Patrick Manchette wrote novels whose protagonists are casually used and discarded by the French government. More recently, Dominique Manotti takes up a similar theme in her novels and stories. (Read James Sallis' appreciation of Manchette.)

Paranoia and manipulation were in the air in the 1970s, but did the French have a special affinity for this sort of story? If so, why? What are you favorite stories of a man or woman used, manipulated, and discarded government, corporate, or military power?
© Peter Rozovsky 2013