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.

Paul Martin is the subservient brown-nosing youngster who needs quick advancement up the hierarchy to pay for the modern lifestyle he is buying on credit. Seeing that marrying his immediate superior's daughter will not get him the results he wants, he begins plotting the demise of the head of the company. The company itself specializes in holiday travel and unscrupulously brutalizes its customers for maximum profit, spending more thought on publicity gimmicks than customer service...

The story of Lafayette, the 19 year old pacifist who takes the side of the Colonials during the American war of Independence.

In a moment of madness a middle-aged, married and respectable pharmacist kills a young woman who is sun-bathing by a lake. Unable to take in what he has done, he flees from the scene of the crime and behaves as if nothing has happened. Eventually her boyfriend is charged with the crime and, in a strange twist of fate, the killer finds himself serving on the jury.

No synopsis available yet.

In pre-World Ward I in Paris, a budding artist, Pierre LeBlanc, falls in love and marries Janine, a dressmaker's assistant. Pierre has a flair for designing clothes, and he and his bride live in a blissful paradise, until the war breaks out and he becomes a soldier. Janine dies in childbirth and, no longer desiring to live, Pierre volunteers for a dangerous patrol behind German lines. While recuperating in the hospital from a wound he received on the mission, Pierre spends his time drawing sketches of dresses. He becomes rich and famous after the war. Years later, after devoting himself to his daughter, Pierre seeks a marriage with a girl no older than his daughter. A conflict develops and to ensure his daughter's happiness, Pierre sacrifices his own plans.

Shopkeeper Victor Garnier has naively invested his family's life savings in an African mine, on his banker's recommendation. When the mine is nationalized, rendering the stock worthless, he considers himself shamelessly robbed by the bank; it seems only fair to him to return the 'favor' and rob the bank, teaming up with the whole family as they were all duped. Even for professionals such an enterprise -he decides to dig a tunnel- is quite demanding, but for simple commoners it's daunting, as they also have their personal downsides; thus Victor's wife has a most unwelcome tendency to blurt out the truth, even to the grumpy local copper: a crazy risk when you need to keep a criminal plan secret.

No synopsis available yet.

This drama about the Carmelite order of nuns is set during the French Revolution. A young woman seeks refuge with the Carmelites because she is terrified of dying during the upheaval. The longer she associates with the nuns the more she is transformed by their faith and devotion. 

Judge Julien Lamy regularly deals with the welfare of children, namely delinquents. When orphan Alain burns down a barn belonging to his abusive foster family, Lamy has no choice but to send him to a juvenile jail. There, he meets elder Francis, desperate to escape and reunite with his girlfriend. The boys eventually flee, as Francis goes in search of his lost love and Alain continues seeking his biological family.

Gerard, a young man from a "good family" dreams of becoming an actor. To do this, he follows everywhere his sister Frédérique who is infatuated with cinéma vérité.

This historic mini-series is set just after the execution of Louis XVI and follows the actions of a group of loyal royalists, led by the Chevalier de Maison-Rouge. His goal is to free Queen Marie-Antoinette and the young King Louis XVII, but he runs into the brutal jailer Simon who makes sure to thwart any attempt to escape. A secondary plot line deals with the feelings of Lindet, the lieutenant of the national guard, towards Geneviève, the young protege of the royalist Morand, which for the sans-culottes is a crime in itself.

Anselmo is a young anthropologist who is tormented by jealousy, and although his wife Camilla does not give reasons, keeps a close eye on her. After consulting a psychiatrist, the doctor says the problem is him and not his wife. So he plots to verify, once and for all, if his suspicions are true. By chance he meets an old friend, Lotario, who seems the ideal person to carry out his plans. What Anselmo does not know is that his friend is a real womanizer who ends seducing his wife.

Here's a railway station. Next to it, there's generally a town; and in a town,there is love! The train arrives. Mr. Andrieu is expecting his sardines and both his daughters, back from winter sports.

Comedy in five acts by Beaumarchais, filmed by Marcel Bluwal in studio and on location. The cast, in accordance with Marcel Bluwal's wishes, is in keeping with the age and character of the characters, to give it rhythm. At once "a comic baroque play, a bourgeois drama, a chansonnier's number, a social satire, a farce and a very pretty love story" according to Marcel Bluwal, it can also be summed up, according to Beaumarchais, as "the most bantering of intrigues".

After five years in the army, Valentin Brû marry a haberdasher. They move to Paris, where Valentin sells frames, while his wife becomes fortune teller. One day, Valentin replaces her, and predict a terrible event which will happen.

The "Védrines", whose head of family is a publisher, are well established in Paris. The "Pittuiti", on the other hand, are gypsies camping out in the suburbs. Young Zita belongs to the tribe and meets Théo Védrines, the publisher's son, a wild seducer. Zita is soon forced to tell her family that she is expecting a child. A scandal for the Pittuiti family, who instruct Zita's brother to apply the law of retaliation, Bruno must in turn seduce the pleasant Gisèle Védrines. And why not? But while Théo gradually becomes an anarchist, Bruno becomes more and more embourgeoise as Védrines discovers in him a real talent for writing. Still, Bruno and Gisèle will be as happy as Théo and Zita ever were.

Claire is a chic young Parisian woman married to a somewhat older husband, Jean. Claire meets her lover, Claude, at his apartment, where he gifts her a fur coat. Now Claire needs to figure out how to return home with this expensive gift without the affair being found out.

Charles is a student in Strasbourg. Abandoned by Liliane, his fiancée, who has inexplicably given up on marriage, he moves to Paris, where he decides to pursue a career in cinema. He founded a film club and became a journalist, then assistant to a famous director. Little by little, he came face to face with the various compromises inherent in this professional milieu. After writing a screenplay about his experiences, he enlists the help of Chantal, a young actress, to bring his film project to fruition.

In 1944, in a small village in Calvados, just as the Allies landed, a British plane was shot down. The wounded pilot seeks help. All the villagers, who speak only of resistance, refuse to help, for fear of reprisals. Only the mayor, Dr. Leproux, takes him in and nurses him back to health, then entrusts him to the Resistance. But the Germans get wind of the story and arrest Leproux. He is saved by Major Frantz. But the budding friendship between these two men "doesn't stop the drums", and the war is on.