French President Nicolas Sarkozy has appealed for reason after Sunday night’s televised film ended without the death of a leading protagonist. The French nation is believed to be in a collective state of shock after the happy ending, which was judged by many to be “excessive” and “totally un-French.”

The film, entitled J’en ai marre (I’ve had enough) started promisingly enough with leading actor Isabelle Huppert about to commit suicide before flashing back to key moments in her life which led her to this moment. Between each flashback, her character inched ever more precariously towards the edge of the precipice, drawing the viewing audience in further to her web of despair.

“It was brilliant,” said avid TF1 viewer Jean Aiplein-Lecul. “Gripping stuff, and I didn’t even mind watching yoghurt adverts every five minutes. But then at the end, when she turns round, decides not to kill herself and the film ends – I was absolutely horrified. This isn’t meant to happen, I thought – surely they’ll cut the credits and show her falling to a grisly death, but no – no death. In fact, if anything, she was happy and decided to go and get married. This is disgusting, I don’t think I can go into work on Monday morning now.”

In fact, many viewers chose to spend Monday at home recovering from the shock of the happy ending, and French Mini-President Nicolas Sarkozy told TF1 bosses that he would take a “hard line” against those who decided to show the film. He told reporters:

“This is not acceptable. Those who chose to show J’en ai marre must be removed from their jobs immediately. A nation expects a film to end with some kind of horrifying suicide or unfortunate death, not tears of happiness, hugs and kisses, and realisation that all along she had been doing the wrong thing.”

TF1 bosses were unavailable for comment, but a spokesman for the company issued a press release saying “clearly those in charge of programming did not watch the film all the way through, probably because it seemed a foregone conclusion that we were going to get a death at the end. We have reviewed our processes, though, and if we find a French film that doesn’t have a suicide or unfortunate death at the end, we will compensate with an ending from a different film.”