The Bureau, or how to restore trust in an uncertain world

Created by Eric Rochant, The Bureau (Canal+, 2015-2020) explores the world of intelligence by describing the work of the undercover agents in France's DGSE. Faced with the uncertainties and geopolitical complexities of the contemporary world, the series chooses to immerse itself at the heart of "human intelligence." This article considers the hypothesis that such a work of fiction helps to restore viewers' trust in a democracy's ability to fight against what threatens it. By taking viewers behind the scenes of intelligence, by familiarizing them with complex characters, the series questions the legitimacy of the trust that can be placed in an intelligence service. The fallibility of the agents, staged in a detailed manner and reflected by the series itself, reassures us because it allows us to understand and share a specific form of life: that of secret action. Espionage, counterespionage, and counterterror-ism then appear to be practices based ultimately, not on absolute mastery, but on the decision to trust or, by contrast, to mistrust. Mobilizing contemporary sociological research on trust (Giddens 1994; Luhmann 2006), we describe The Bureau as a work of fiction shown on our screens, the possibility of a restoration of trust, or, as Stanley Cavell might put it, a possible way out of skepticism.