The "Learn French with News" podcast presented the 1990s crime story of Jean-Claude Romand, a major French criminal case. For 18 years, Romand, born in Jura in 1954, maintained a web of lies, claiming to be a successful doctor and researcher for the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, after repeatedly failing medical school in Lyon. He married his cousin Florence in 1980, had two children named Caroline and Antoine, and sustained his fabricated life through loans, petty scams, and defrauding relatives of their savings. By early 1993, at age 38, Romand faced mounting debts—including 200,000€ owed to his former mistress, Chantal—and the imminent exposure of his deception. Driven by the fear of disappointing his family, Romand committed the irreparable: he murdered his wife Florence and children Caroline and Antoine in their home, then killed his parents. He subsequently attempted to murder Chantal near Paris but ultimately spared her, before returning home to set his house on fire and attempt suicide with expired barbiturates, though he was rescued by firefighters. At his 1996 trial, where psychiatrists described him as a mythomaniac, Romand was sentenced to "perpétuité" (life imprisonment, equivalent to 30 years in France) for the murders. After 26 years of incarceration, Jean-Claude Romand was granted conditional parole in June 2019, initially residing with monks in an abbey until 2021, and is now free.