“The Bureau” (“Le Bureau des légendes”, 2015–2020)

Work

The series was created for Canal+ by Éric Rochant and produced by TOP – The Oligarchs Productions; five seasons were made, 50 episodes in all, each about 52 minutes long.¹

Canal+ began showing the first season (10 episodes) on Monday 27 April 2015. The protagonist, Guillaume Debailly, codenamed “Malotru”, returns to Paris after six years in Syria under cover as a literature teacher.³

In October 2020 Rochant announced that there would be no sixth season; the fifth season was co-created with Jacques Audiard.⁴

The real institution

The DGSE regards as its predecessor the BCRA, set up in London in July 1940. The SDECE was established in 1946 and in 1982 took the name DGSE. Since 1966 the service has reported to the Minister of Defence; it is a civilian institution, accountable to the political authorities.⁵

The “legends” of the title are, in intelligence parlance, invented life stories of people working under cover (see the entry legend). We do not describe the DGSE’s internal organisation or methods: they are not disclosed in the sources we use.

The creators and the DGSE

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesAt a press conference the producer Alex Berger said that the series is bound to the DGSE by a contract for the use of its emblem and that the relationship is purely contractual. Rochant described it as one of great respect, but denied that the crew had seen what the service actually does; he meets its officers occasionally, mainly at screenings of episodes.²

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesAccording to “Journal du Geek” (2015), the crew was able to visit a DGSE unit and Rochant used advisers, while stressing that elements of the service’s strategy are secret and that nothing that could harm it made it into the series.³

What experts say

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesRochant said that the series aims to be realistic “in principle”, that is, grounded in common sense rather than fantasy – which does not mean faithful in operational detail.²

According to the publisher’s description of Yves Trotignon’s book “Le Bureau des légendes : politique du secret” (The Bureau of Legends: The Politics of Secrecy; PUF, 2018), the series changes the image of the spy: instead of adventurers it shows civil servants and military personnel working as professionals, torn between vocation and emotion. The DGSE watches it, the publishers write, “not without satisfaction”.⁶

What remains unclear

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesAccounts of the crew’s access to the DGSE differ: according to “Journal du Geek” (2015), the creators were able to visit a unit of the service, while according to Rochant’s statement to AlloCiné (2018) the crew does not enter its offices and does not see its officers at work.^2,3