50

This paper examines the different ways in which the television series The Bureau (Canal+, 2015-…) changes our perception of the French intelligence services. Throughout the series, the ordinary life of a regular bureaucrat goes hand-in-hand with the unique actions of clandestine agents. However, although the show successfully demystifies the intelligence services, it does not normalize their activities. Instead, The Bureau unveils their exceptional nature: the persistence of violence in politics and the necessity of state secrecy despite the principles of transparency and publicity democracies have given themselves. By revealing this ambivalence, the series therefore enables a real individual and collective “transformation” through a modification of the way we look at democratic regimes.