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French television from the 1950s to the 1970s looked ambiguously at French society. An ideological approach, often translating the intellectuals’ disdain for it, made this medium the forum for the reproduction of all forms of conservatism and social alienation. While the small screen did indeed throw a prudish veil over major social developments, it cannot be reduced to the role of a censor. It is also a reflection of the difficulties and transformations of French society. This attempt at anthropological observation was shared by several programs (Etat d’Urgence, A la Decouverte des Français) that portrayed real scenes of French daily life in order to better detect its changes. Better still, television was often ahead of the game and, like radio, initiated debates directly concerning the social changes of the moment. Taboos were lifted, often with precaution, in programs like Faire Face and Les Femmes Aussi by Eliane Victor or the news program, Zoom. Subjects judged subversive, contraception, sexuality, or prostitution as well as problems of society such as racism or prisons were covered and open for discussion. Television of the 1960s, as a veil but also mirror and spur, opened a breach that has since then shifted the boundaries of the unspeakable.