Le Grand Échiquier is a French variety television program created and presented by Jacques Chancel. It aired at 8:30 pm on the first channel of the ORTF from January 12, 1972 to July 12, 1972, then on the second color channel of the ORTF from September 1972 to December 1974, and finally on Antenne 2 from January 1975 to December 21, 1989. The program returned to France 2 on December 20, 2018 and is hosted by Anne-Sophie Lapix.

A talk show presented by Michel Drucker

Charlie is a former classical pianist who has changed his name and now plays jazz in a grimy Paris bar. When Charlie's brothers, Richard and Chico, surface and ask for Charlie's help while on the run from gangsters they have scammed, he aids their escape. Soon Charlie and Lena, a waitress at the same bar, face trouble when the gangsters arrive, looking for his brothers.

Marseille. Heaps of flowers and funeral wreaths... "A man who no longer defends his colors is no longer a man."

Six vignettes set in different sections of Paris, by six directors. St. Germain des Pres (Douchet), Gare du Nord (Rouch), Rue St. Denis (Pollet), and Montparnasse et Levallois (Godard) are stories of love, flirtation and prostitution; Place d'Etoile (Rohmer) concerns a haberdasher and his umbrella; and La Muette (Chabrol), a bourgeois family and earplugs.

After receiving a mobster's heart as a transplant, a modest bank teller embarks on a life of criminal exploits.

A priest gets a little hot under the collar when the wife he thought was dead unexpectedly returns.

A man inherits an old house in a very bad condition. With the help of a young mechanic, he begins to renovate this house.

Jean Lerat begins his military service at an army camp. Despite his aunt’s attempts to pull a few strings to his advantage, the unfortunate Lerat manages to get on the wrong side of his bullying colonel…

After a bank robbery gone wrong, a crook goes on the run across Belgium to escape the police, clear himself of a crime that he did not commit, and protect his girlfriend from a shady lawyer.

Gerard Casanova is the man all the rich and beautiful women call when they want their sexual urges satisfied.

On the day of his marriage, the son of a Marseille king declares to his family that he wishes to engage in the police.

Three tramps in search of adventure and fortune decide to try their luck at swindling. After an initial failure at shoplifting, they take over a bateau-mouche and exploit tourists in their own way.

The Secret Service abducts a "rocket scientist" to better protect him against gangsters acting for Chinese agents.

Paul fishes out of the water the body of his greatest enemy. To avoid accusations that he is a killer, taking steps that will clear his good name.

A Canadian woman with two working class boyfriends writes letters to them, breaking off with one of them while professing her love for the other, but fears that she mixed up the letters.

This variety show, with its new concept, is presented as a musical comedy. Having formed an orchestra, a group of young people perform in the courtyards of an old Parisian neighborhood, hoping to earn some money. But no one listens to them. All the tenants of the building are glued to their television sets. Only one mysterious man takes an interest in the group and offers them a box of magic matches.

These two friendly delivery boys from a Parisian department store not only take their job to heart as much as possible, but also consider themselves responsible for the happiness of the customers they have to deliver to. This leads them successively to help, at the cost of incredible acrobatics, a young couple celebrating the first anniversary of their marriage, to mingle with the clientele of a rather disquieting doctor, to almost perish in an ambush that was of course not intended for them, and to avoid a domestic quarrel.

Taking the place of the police, whom he finds neither fast nor efficient enough, a journalist named Hugo sets out to find the perpetrator of a murder. Suffocating in the small town where he plies his trade, he is eager to seize the opportunity that will make him a great reporter. The discovery of a murdered young woman - a high-fashion model - puts him on the trail of diamond smugglers. Despite the cautious advice of the newspaper editor and the pleas of his wife, who senses the dangers threatening them, Hugo forges ahead, plunging headlong into the labyrinth where gangsters are luring him to disappear. He finally unmasks the murderer. He finally gets his sensational story - but through his own carelessness, another girl falls victim to the gang. At the last second, the wife he thought he'd lost through his stubborn, madly clumsy attitude is still there, ready to comfort him.

Oscar, a shy lifeguard, flees the wrath of his boss following the disaster caused by the water purification machine he has developed. In his haste, he accidentally grabs a gangster's car containing the plans for a super satellite. A wild chase ensues.