''A Very Secret Service'' (french: Au service de la France) is a French

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

series Series may refer to: People with the name * Caroline Series (born 1951), English mathematician, daughter of George Series * George Series (1920–1995), English physicist Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Series, the ordered sets used in ...

created by Jean-François Halin and produced by Gilles de Verdière.

Premise

In 1960, young André Merlaux eagerly accepts a cryptic summons to take a position as a trainee officer with the French Secret Services (based on the

Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage Service may refer to: Activities * Academic administration, Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benef ...

). He will be watched over by the operations director Moïse, and reluctantly mentored by senior colleagues Moulinier (in charge of

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

n affairs), Jacquard (

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), and Calot (

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...

). It is the height of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

and the position of France as a

Great Power A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power inf ...

is in crisis, faced with independence challenges from the colonies of

French West Africa French West Africa (french: Afrique-Occidentale française, ) was a federation of eight French colonial territories in West Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan (now Mali), French Guinea (now Guinea), Ivory Coast, Upper Volta (now Burki ...

, above all the fight over the independence of Algeria. French society is changing at home as well, with a rising

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

exemplified by growing

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

and New Wave cinema.

Cast and characters

Main cast

Hugo Becker Hugo Becker (born Jean Otto Eric Hugo Becker, 13 February 1863, died 30 July 1941) was a prominent German cellist, cello teacher, and composer. He studied at a young age with Alfredo Piatti, and later Friedrich Grützmacher in Dresden. Biograp ...

as André Merlaux * Wilfred Benaïche as Colonel Maurice Mercaillon * Christophe Kourotchkine as Georges Préjean "Moïse" *

Mathilde Warnier Mathilde Warnier (born ) is a French actress, model, and columnist. In 2011, she became known for an exchange with Nicolas Bedos on the set of the show ''Au Field de la nuit''. In 2021, she portrayed Nadine Gires in '' The Serpent'', a British ...

as Sophie Mercaillon * Karim Barras as Jacky Jacquard * Bruno Paviot as Roger Moulinier * Jean-Édouard Bodziak as Jean-René Calot *

Marie-Julie Baup Marie-Julie Baup (born 13 September 1979, Paris) is a French actress, writer, and comedian. Her work includes roles in Micmacs onscreen and A Midsummer Night's Dream onstage, and she has received several nominations for various Molière Awards a ...

as Marie-Jo Cotin

Secondary characters

* Joséphine de La Baume as Miss Clayborn * Antoine Gouy as Henri Lechiot / Hervé Gomez / Schmid * Philippe Resimont as Father Jean * Julie Farenc as Nathalie * Khalid Maadour as Moktar * Stéphanie Fatout as Irène Mercaillon * Axelle Simon as Marthe * Baptiste Sornin as Planton, reception desk employee

Development

Principal photography for the first series took place between October 2014 and February 2015 in

Île-de-France , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 = +01:00 , timezone1_DST = CEST , utc_offset1_DST = +02:00 , blank_name_sec1 = Gross regional product , blank_info_sec1 = Ranked 1st , bla ...

and

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

. The series recalls '' OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies'' in style and tone, although it is slightly more serious (writer Halin was also credited for the screenplay of all three OSS 117 films, and one of the three ''

Les Guignols ''Les Guignols'' (, ''The Puppets''), formerly ''Les Guignols de l'info'' (, ''The News Puppets''), was a daily satirical latex puppet show broadcast on the French television channel Canal+. It was created in 1988, inspired by '' Le Bébête Sh ...

'' authors). The show uses historical events as background or foreground for its action, similar to ''

Mad Men ''Mad Men'' is an American period drama television series created by Matthew Weiner and produced by Lionsgate Television. It ran on the cable network AMC from July 19, 2007, to May 17, 2015, lasting for seven seasons and 92 episodes. Its fict ...

'' (such as the

Algerian war of independence The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...

and the first French nuclear test,

Gerboise Bleue ''Gerboise Bleue'' (; ) was the codename of the first French nuclear test. It was conducted by the Nuclear Experiments Operational Group (GOEN), a unit of the Joint Special Weapons Command on 13 February 1960, at the Saharan Military Experimen ...

). Arte's president of fiction, Olivier Wotling, confirmed a second season to ''

Le Figaro ''Le Figaro'' () is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It is headquartered on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The oldest national newspaper in France, ''Le Figaro'' is one of three French newspapers of reco ...

''s TV Magazine on July 3, 2016. In a March 2019 interview with the French language outlet PureMédias, Hugo Becker expressed doubt regarding the likelihood of a third season, stating that the series had reached "the end of the arc," and adding that while "there might be material... the story is complete and I think that's fine." As an aside, however, several characters (including Moulinier, Jacquard, and Calot) as well as the SDECE office sets from the television show are vividly featured in '' OSS 117: From Africa with Love'' (2021), indirectly creating a shared universe between the two franchises.

Episodes

Season 1 (2015)

Season 2 (2018)

Release

It was commissioned by

Arte Arte (; (), sometimes stylized in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European public service channel dedicated to culture. It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping ARTE, plus ...

, where it premiered in 2015, and was later distributed worldwide by

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

on 1 July 2016. The second season appeared on Netflix in August 2018. The show was removed from Netflix in November 2022.

Reception

Steve Greene of

IndieWire IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Hollyw ...

wrote that despite a "certain level of absurdity", the show was a "pretty well-calibrated balance between homage and parody".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Very Secret Service 2015 French television series debuts Television shows set in Paris Television series set in 1960 Espionage television series French-language Netflix original programming French spy films French spy comedy films French comedy-drama television series 2010s French drama television series 2010s French comedy television series French spy television series