Un espion à Pékin : histoire d’amour et espionnage en Chine communiste – Documentaire – AT

Pour la première fois, Bernard Boursicot raconte comment, par amour pour un chanteur d’opéra, il est devenu espion pour le compte de la Chine. Un récit captivant.

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En 1964, le général de Gaulle décide d’établir des relations diplomatiques avec la Chine communiste. La même année, un jeune Breton de condition modeste, recruté par le Quai d’Orsay, débarque à Pékin. Il devient comptable à l’ambassade de France et ne tarde pas à rencontrer Shi Peipu, un chanteur lyrique charismatique et androgyne. Le coup de foudre est immédiat, mais Bernard Boursicot fait machine arrière, n’osant pas s’engager dans une relation homosexuelle. À force de mensonges, Shi Peipu parvient à vaincre ses réticences en lui faisant croire qu’il est une femme. Quelques années plus tard, arrêté(e) par les gardes rouges de la Révolution culturelle, l’artiste échappe à la sanction en promettant d’enseigner à son compagnon les préceptes de l’idéologie maoïste. Pour protéger celle qu’il aime, le petit fonctionnaire sans histoires accepte alors de livrer des documents confidentiels aux autorités chinoises. Une double vie qu’il mènera sans accrocs jusqu’en 1983, avant d’être démasqué par le commissaire Nart et condamné à six ans de prison.
PSYCHODRAME
Comment en arrive-t-on à trahir sa patrie ? À quoi ressemble la vie d’un espion ordinaire ? Comment parvient-on à aveugler son entourage ? Et, dans le cas de Bernard Boursicot, à s’aveugler soi-même ? Terré en Bretagne depuis sa libération, l’ancien agent double sort pour la première fois de son silence. Il a accepté de revenir sur le psychodrame qui a marqué sa vie, entre manipulation, trahison et passion, et de livrer sa vérité, près de vingt ans après la sortie de M. Butterfly de David Cronenberg, qui relatait son incroyable histoire.

“Un espion à Pékin”
Réalisation: Nicolas Jallot
Production : ARTE France, Ladybirds Films
© ARTE – 2011

The path that leads an ordinary man to an extraordinary destiny is very mysterious. Lost and melancholic on this cliff in Brittany, he stares into infinity, as if tirelessly trying to find the other time, this blessed time before lost innocence and flouted illusions. Apparently, nothing could distinguish Bernard Boursicot from another

Solitary walker. Nothing, undoubtedly, except youth and candor, predestined Bernard to become a spy in the service of communist China. But the dress of an opera singer was invited into her life, and this passion so heavy with secrets is at the heart of her incredible story.

In 1949, China awakened to communism. Mao Tsetung’s “long march” carries the hopes of millions of workers and peasants. Its people’s republic succeeds millennia of dynastic imperialism. Refusing to follow the directives of his big Soviet brother, Mao imposed his own model. From then on, China will live as a recluse

Between its walls, padlocked, inaccessible, impenetrable. Fifteen years later, the Cold War has formed opposing and overpowering blocs that pose even greater threats to the world. This is the moment that General De Gaulle chooses to make an important decision. A fierce defender of France’s independence

From the Western bloc, he was just as opposed to the domination of Beijing by the Soviet bloc. And on January 27, 1964, he decided to reestablish diplomatic relations with Communist China. Since my stroke, I returned to Shanghai, three years ago, I left

All my things here, with my cousin, that way, it stays with the family. Everything is a bit: China, China, China… That’s the big Chinese flag, which covered Mao’s tomb. Here is a photo of me, when I was 20, in China, a second birth in

A country where everything is exotic for me, and I discover a China where we all have the impression of thinking we are Marco Polo. All foreigners. Everyone has something to discover that the other has not seen. Nothing could suggest that Bernard Boursicot would follow in the footsteps of

Marco Polo. Far from these great historical upheavals, the young Bernard Boursicot only dreams of cinema, painting, travel. He would like to go to the Amazon… Of his Breton origins, of his laborious childhood in the frost of Morbihan, he has only kept only one certainty: his life is elsewhere, far from

Rainy Sunday mornings in the markets with his father, and from his modest job as an accountant in Vannes. In 1964, he was twenty years old, and it was in Paris that he wanted to try to quench his thirst for culture. He frequented cinematographic circles, meeting the founder of the French cinematheque,

Henry Langlois and his companion Mary Meerson. They tell him about this embassy that France has decided to open in Beijing. So, he was right to hope, to believe that dreams are never completely in vain… From now on, the dream is there, so close that he trembles with impatience…

They tell me: we are in a hurry, we need an accountant right away. Do you accept ? So it didn’t take long for me to say: yes, of course. And then at the last moment, they tell me: it’s canceled, you’re no longer going to China. We realized that you

Are a minor, we need authorization from your parents. A month after his arrival in Paris, Bernard Boursicot flew to Beijing. We can imagine the exaltation and enthusiasm which must invade the mind of the young Breton, plunged almost by chance into the heart of history in progress…

It is Claude Chayet, first representative of France in Beijing in 1964, who guesses that this totally inexperienced young man burns with curiosity. Bernard Boursicot is a provincial, who was thrown like a shell on another planet, which was at that time China, the China of Mao Tse Tung. And so he came out,

I think he’s from Nantes, unless I’m mistaken, and he was thrown like a shell from Nantes to Beijing. You immediately see the somewhat extraordinary character for a newcomer to China, to be part of an embassy, ​​with the gold that clings to this term. And so we can understand, to a certain

Extent, that he was a little bit alone, probably, and a little bit distraught. On October 25, 1964, I arrived in Beijing to take up a job as an accountant at the French embassy. It’s autumn in China, it’s magnificent and very poetic, and it’s very rural. The streets

We pass through are truly countryside as soon as we leave the airport. Until I arrive at the diplomatic quarter, and I see Chinese people who all seem calm and nice in appearance, at the time the Chinese all dressed the same way, in Mao uniforms. All the leaders were dressed the same,

Men and women too, in jackets. The jacket was unisex and uniform, and it was very clever who could tell the gender of the other. Unlike this French diplomatic aristocracy which lives in isolation , the young man will never tire of discovering and getting to

Know China better, fascinated by this popular class from which he himself comes but which, here, has taken the power. Bernard and his friend Patrice Fava, a young researcher stationed at the embassy, ​​now can’t wait to get on their bicycles and explore the

Streets of Beijing. Diving into the very heart of the mysteries of the Orient… Everyone was dressed the same way, but it is obvious that I never confused men and women. But on the other hand, I who had long hair, I very often heard, from the Chinese,

Who were looking at us, (words in Chinese): is it a man or is it a woman? It’s a stupid question, but no one had long hair, it was unthinkable for a Chinese to have long hair. So there you have it, and anyway

, we were Martians for the Chinese, most of the Chinese had never seen a foreigner in the flesh. So wherever we were, we were the object of extraordinary curiosity. Do you think I was on another planet? The first time he sees her is one evening at a reception at the

French embassy. While people of the world compete in elegance and diplomatic bows, Bernard is introduced to a mysterious character. His name: Shi Peï Pu. This timeless being, who with a stroke of a black pencil and a cloud of rice powder, transforms into a princess, instantly fascinates Bernard. Faced with this oriental siren who

Seems to him to come from another world, from an immemorial age of warlords and samurai, Boursicot does not take long to succumb, and the flame which that evening lights the heart of the young Breton will not waver. more. But what Bernard ignores and will continue to ignore until his loss, is

That this heiress of a thousand-year-old tradition is in reality an heir… There it is Shi Peï Pu, an actor or actress of the opera from Beijing. “Traditionally, men played women’s roles. This was

Because socially the profession of actor was equivalent to that of prostitutes. So a woman who performed on stage was compared to a prostitute. This is why women are not actors, and their roles are played by men, at Peking Opera.”

I met Shi Peï Pu at the end of 1964, at the house of the charge d’affaires, Mr. Chayet, what attracted me was the fact that he did not dress like other Chinese, that I I found it particularly attractive. Given his intellectual level, speaking French extremely fluently,

He had studied with the nuns in Kunming, in the south of China. It was rare to find Chinese people, there were some, who spoke French very well, but when they spoke French very well, they were used either by Chinese government services or by the French embassy.

He fascinated me, because he had a culture that I didn’t have. In addition, he told the stories wonderfully, at that time I didn’t take them for legends, but it was a bit sadistic, he told implicitly, it was incomparable. Every day he had an invented story, it was Scheherazade, Shi Peï Pu.

The real Scheherazade. Shi Peï Pu was a character that in a certain way we admired, as an opera singer, someone who had a very particular aura, and the memory I have, when he turned to Bernard Boursicot, he had a certain face, and when he turned towards me, he

Had another. As if there were both yin and yang aspects, the masculine and feminine aspect of his personality. Before arriving in China, I had no sexual experience, Shi Peï Pu taught me everything in his own way. And all I saw was fire. She came

To my house on July 14, 1965, and there, for the first time, we made love. And she came out with blood, and then he said Ahhhhh ahh I’m in pain, she told me that she was not the same as other women, so that Shi Peï Pu took charge, with her

Special art , the way to make me cum. And he succeeded beyond his hopes, in my opinion, since it worked very well. It would undoubtedly be wrong to mock the naivety and dazzling love of a young man of twenty. In the arms of Shi Peï Pu, he is initiated

Into the strict rules of a pleasure codified for centuries. From these furtive antics accomplished in the darkness and without undressing, he will retain the sensation of having been given the secret of oriental love, of having been recognized worthy of sharing its most complex mysteries.

On December 13, 1965, I left Shi Peï Pu and China, convinced that she was expecting a child from me, and full of guilt, I telephoned her from the Beijing airport to tell her: I will come back. And she said to me: I will wait for you.

Bernard has barely been born into a passion for love when he already seems to have to give it up. Well noted, the young man is transferred for three years to the Middle East. The news is a promotion, but it resonates like a sentence.

Heartbroken, Boursicot must come to terms with this heartbreak. He packs his trunks with the hope and desire to find as quickly as possible the one he considers to be the one and only love of his life… People, upon arriving in China, depersonalized themselves, they became, they

Were infantilized by the Chinese, and then they had a kind of admiration like that, spontaneous for China, which was normal, it was also our case, and ultimately they only saw the good sides, and since the Chinese had the art to receive people, they felt like they were China’s ambassadors abroad.

China was a country that was so closed, so mysterious, the fact of having been there was already something so formidable, and then the French intelligentsia was very Marxist, and saw in the Chinese model everything that other countries socialists had not succeeded. While Bernard carries his distress and the memory of his beloved throughout

The Middle East, China is preparing to experience the darkest period in its recent history. 1966, after 17 years of power which allowed him to lock down the country, Mao now wants to attack people’s minds. It is the “cultural revolution”, a poorly named pretext for ideological, cultural and social cleansing

. It will cause nearly a million victims. From now on, the history of China will only be written in the light of the Little Red Book, a collection of quotations from the Great Helmsman, which erases age-old traditions with the stroke of a pen. He constrains and enslaves all

Artistic and literary production to revolutionary propaganda, recruiting children into his armies of pioneers. Intellectuals, artists, are arrested, judged, humiliated, condemned, re-educated, forced to share the miserable fate of the peasants. Strangely, Shi Peï Pu is spared and does not suffer the same fate as his “comrades”. Is he already a

Chinese secret service agent? It is in this climate of terror and psychosis that Bernard Boursicot will make his return to China. Shi Peï Pu’s silence, imposed by the situation, made him mad with worry. I’m going back to Beijing, but not as a small accountant, but in charge of the

Archives and serving the diplomatic bag. As soon as I arrived, as soon as I set foot in Beijing, I was haunted by the need for me to find Shi Peï Pu, my wife, and our child. Luckily, or unluckily, two days after my arrival, I found Shi Peï Pu in the suburbs

Of Beijing. I knocked on the door, I heard (words in Chinese), it means “who is it?” “, and when he opened the door he said: oh it’s you, and I asked him where our child was, and he took out

A photo of a kid from his office. At that moment, there are people knocking on the door, and then finally there are about 40 people who enter the apartment, and he, Shi Peï Pu, tells me: stay calm. After a while, the military police arrive.

“Love is a look that sees nothing,” says a Chinese proverb. And we can undoubtedly imagine that the trap which will close on Bernard has been patiently and meticulously prepared since the first day, since the first minute of this first disturbing and passionate night.

Upon his return to Beijing in 1969, he asked for this son whom he did not know but whom the Chinese secret services had found for him. He is a four-year-old Uighur orphan who can easily pass for a mixed race, and who

Was taught French. But Shi Peï Pu tells him that he lives in the countryside, and that they will only be allowed to see him if Bernard agrees to collaborate… When I arrived in China, I had all the preparations to fall into a trap. But Shi Peï Pu had bewitched me.

The blackmail is there, and destiny speaks: Bernard Boursicot will therefore be this spy that China took so much care to create. When I first arrived in Beijing, the person who greeted me at the airport was Bernard Boursicot. And I remember

Very well that we had a beer at the airport, and I was impressed, because he had ordered a beer in Chinese, and I, who had already learned Chinese, taught Chinese, it was a term that was not in my vocabulary. So I said to myself: ah but here is someone who knows

China well. And it was also thanks to him that I took my first steps in Beijing, that he took me to small restaurants, and especially at a time when foreigners and diplomats were truly terrified at the idea of walking around town, because it was still the day

After the Cultural Revolution, and there had been numerous incidents, notably in front of the French embassy, ​​the French embassy had been surrounded by the Red Guards. There was all this psychosis that was still there, and ultimately a lot of people remained confined to their diplomatic buildings, and never

Ventured into Beijing, never tried to share the lives of the Chinese, and tried to meet them. Which was very difficult, since ultimately, the Chinese, at that time, did not have the right to contact foreigners, we were basically all considered spies. It was Patrice Fava who, from 1970, filmed China on a daily basis.

Rare images. With his friend Bernard, they will immerse themselves a little more in Chinese reality each day, discover each day a little more closely the horrors of a totalitarian system which locks minds, reduces all will to the cult of a unique thought…

With Bernard Boursicot I very often walked around, like that, with my camera, in the small streets, so he was also very often my assistant, in quotes. He was someone who was a bit reckless, so at a time when many people didn’t dare leave the embassy,

​​we both appeared as people who took risks. And in fact, there were all kinds of difficulties in filming at that time, firstly the curiosity of the Chinese, the camera gazes, as soon as we were somewhere a stranger, plus a camera, we created

Formidable crowds. And then on top of that, we often had to deal with activists , who found that what we were filming was perhaps not what we needed to film, and so it happened several times that I found myself, for example, in a revolutionary committee, interviewed, writing my self-criticism.

Little by little, Patrice and Bernard even participate in neighborhood committee meetings , brainwashing sessions during which the revolutionary guards ensure that Mao’s thoughts are understood, assimilated, recorded, uncontested. Besides, with Bernard Boursicot, we had an expression, when we went like that, when we went to make our self-criticisms, in the

Revolutionary committees, we said that we had had a massage. Because it was always towards the masses, we could behave in ways that were not adapted to the desires of the masses. Since the start of the “Cultural Revolution”, Mao has made the threat of American or Soviet aggression hover in everyone’s minds.

At the French embassy, ​​Bernard Boursicot is now responsible for the Diplomatic Bag. A subordinate but highly strategic position for the Chinese, who have a vital need for information. The Americans, who are still fighting in Vietnam and are present in South Korea, have not recognized the communist regime in Beijing. They

Therefore send all their documents through the French embassy. The trap that closed on Bernard is therefore a real boon for the Chinese secret services, who will thanks to him have access to thousands of “top-secret” documents. There were piles of documents that arrived every 15 days in the

Diplomatic bag, I sorted them, and then I tried to see what was interesting for China in the political context of the time, and these documents talked about the vision that the Americans and Russians had on China. I thought, and I was never dissuaded , that the Chinese government was interested.

China’s entire domestic and foreign policy revolved around two great dangers: American imperialism, the Americans and the Vietnam War, and then even more important than that, it was the Soviet Union. In Beijing, in the years 70-71, underground passages were dug throughout the city, all the little alleys of Beijing, all the

Hutongs were open, and a real underground city was created. All universities had their underground shelters. So we were preparing for an imminent attack from the Soviet Union, and that was the great danger. All the slogans that we saw in the countryside (words in Chinese), prepare famine, prepare war, for the people.

At the French embassy, ​​Bernard seems to lead the life of a zealous little civil servant. He has blended into the landscape and no one really pays attention to his comings and goings. Therefore, who could guess that the rigorous young man who sorts, distributes and archives mail is now one of the main

Sources of information for the Chinese regime? To do my internationalist duty, I thought I had to show them some documents from the French embassy. I always tried to take one on the politics of the USSR, another on the Sino-Soviet conflict, seen from Moscow, and then dispatches from Washington.

Shi Peï Pu told me: no more than 3 documents should be brought, because otherwise they will think it’s easy. As I was very well rated, 19/20, no one suspected that there was a mole at the French embassy, ​​and especially not me. Three times a week, I left the embassy

At noon, with the documents hidden under my parka, I took my bicycle, about 3 kilometers further, there were 3 police officers in a sidecar waiting for me, and which started when I passed. And it was after a while that I realized that I had an escort to protect me.

My liaison officers came to take them and photocopy them. And Shi Peï Pu said to me: you worked well today, they left very happy. When I left Shi Peï Pu’s, there were 3 or 4 guys following me on bicycles and who abandoned their surveillance as soon as I arrived near the embassy.

The first time I felt remorse, although I was embarrassed to betray. But the second time, the third time, the fourth time, and so on, it had become a habit. Bernard Boursicot, he loved China in an emotional way. He loved Chinese adventure. He was there, not to write books on

China, or to make films, or to give conferences on China, he was there, he lived things. So obviously, at the time we didn’t know what he was going through in China, but obviously he was going through an experience in retrospect that we can think was fascinating, since he

Had contact with Chinese people so we ourselves didn’t care. had not, the foreigners were completely cut off from Chinese realities, and especially from contact with the Chinese, and apparently he was in China like a fish to water, through Shi Peï Pu he met a lot of Chinese.

Enchanted by this China which awakened his sensuality at the same time as it gave him a “family”, “comrade Boursicot”, agent of the proletarian revolution, will not be long in finding the reward for his services. Overjoyed to have recovered Shi Du Du, this tender son who calls him “Dad”, he is soon authorized to

Travel the country. With Shi Peï Pu and Shi Du Du, he visits Mao’s native province, admires the Mountains of Heavenly Longevity or the tombs of the Ming dynasty… A laborious shadow at the embassy, ​​he believes he has become, outside its walls, a personality considered and showered with consideration.

I didn’t feel like I was betraying France or French interests, I was opening the eyes of the Chinese to how the world worked, they were so narrow-minded in their propaganda that I felt I was doing a service. I was ripe to serve, not to betray. For me, it wasn’t betrayal.

It was serving China, and showing myself as diplomatic in my turn, since in France, in the French system, I was not much. I don’t forget that Boursicot didn’t do this for the money. He did this, in a nutshell, out of passion. He behaved in ways that were not the norm. He

Was not the distinguished gentleman, of the diplomatic community, etc. so he was a bit of a whimsical being, who perhaps had personal problems, also psychological problems, but who lived very well with all that. So it was normal that he was here, that he was among us. But in a slightly strange way, sometimes.

In 70-71-72, we no longer slept together, with Shi Peï Pu. From time to time he did a sexual service for me, and then I wasn’t that curious , and each time I told him: but I want to see, I want to see, and he

Said to me: but how, but you don’t believe me, he took it as a personal insult, and your son, I suffered so much to have him, you know it’s not easy. Whether he was manipulated, it’s difficult to say. In any case,

If he did this to save Shi Peï Pu, to avoid getting Shi Peï Pu in trouble, to protect him, well, that may be true, in any case perhaps Boursicot was a fairly naive person, who didn’t understand the seriousness of what he was doing, because he was a bit of a

Brainless person. He was someone who improvised a lot, probably, his existence, I don’t think he planned to be in China, to become a spy, I think things happened over time, over time. meetings, and all this is made up of a lot of chance, no doubt.

I saw him as someone marginal, unsuitable, as someone who lived a little outside the society of diplomats, who did not have truly friends, among the people of the embassy, ​​he perhaps had some outside, since it often happened that he spoke of meetings with

Other people, but ultimately, it is very difficult to know who he was. I saw him more as a character in a novel. In 1972, when I left China, the Chinese secret services offered me a bag full of money. They insisted, I said: no, no, no.

Shi Peï Pu warned me, if you refuse everything, you will be a hero. I saw the treatment that was reserved for those who had rendered services, and heroes, it was a completely different status, and inaccessible to an ordinary person. In 1972, Bernard Boursicot left China as a hero, proud to have ensured the

Protection of his wife and son. During the six years that their separation lasted, they wrote to each other, promised to live together… In 1978, Bernard was sent to Mongolia where the French embassy was administratively attached to that of Beijing. And it is to Boursicot that

The mission of transporting the diplomatic bag will fall. Once a month, for four years, Bernard will once again reveal the secrets it contains. And will be able to spend time with his family… Then, he is transferred to Belize, in Central America. It was then that Shi

Peï Pu arrived quite officially in Paris, taking advantage of a cultural exchange program, in the company of Shi Du Du. And if his arrival at Roissy is filmed by French television, it is because Shi Peï Pu is considered a star of the Peking Opera, and because he

Enjoys great popularity in certain French cultural circles. A situation which still raises many questions today. Were the Chinese secret services trying to reactivate the Boursicot source? However, on June 30, 1983, Bernard Boursicot’s spy career ended . During all these years, Commissioner Nart never suspected anything. Bernard is rigorous, well rated, unsuspected.

It was the Americans, the CIA in this case, in the early 1980s, who informed us of a betrayal at the French embassy in Beijing. That, they are quite jealous, the services, but as if you want, their telegrams were also compromised, they had an interest in stopping it.

We carried out an investigation, unfortunately, Bernard Boursicot had in the meantime been transferred to Belize. We had no intention, to create a surprise effect, of notifying the Quai d’Orsay to repatriate him for interrogation purposes. We waited for him to come naturally, that is to say during vacations, to challenge him. The arrest

Was a little complicated, because we had to intervene at least twice, the first time he was not there, he was absent from his home, but the officials who intervened noted the presence of a Chinese man in his home. We returned some time later.

Three guys jump on me from behind, grabbing me, and shouting: police, police, police. They tell me: we have a few questions to ask you, I tell them that I’m a diplomat, you can’t stop me, I’m hanging on to a tree, and then they handcuff me.

He was arrested and taken to rue d’Argenson at the time, which was the headquarters of counter-espionage and the DST. They were well informed. Commissioner Nart told me: we want to know what you did in China between 1969 and 1972. We discovered the trap he fell into, through his

Statements, by exploring the relationships he could have had with Chinese citizens, which at the time, for a Chinese, it was strictly forbidden to have relations with a Westerner. So there was a problem there. And he explained to us that he was in an intimate relationship with a

Woman, whom he called Shi Peï Pu, and from this relationship, according to Boursicot, a boy was born, a little boy whose name was Shi Du Du. He walked around me with a plastic folder with the photo on it. by Shi Du Du, among others. And then I broke down, as they say.

Since I was in charge of the whole affair, I questioned Shi Peï Pu. And I admit to having had someone in front of me who had the characteristics of a woman, no beard, slender hands , etc. If you like, at the time, it didn’t occur to me

That all the roles in Peking Opera are played by men, including the women’s roles. So I questioned a woman. When I discovered that Bernard Boursicot was the number 1 spy, and the number 1 public danger who had been caught by the police, obviously I was

Like everyone else, I discovered, through the French press, his activities, what was being said, obviously it all seemed to me both exaggerated, and at the same time a little incredible. So between us we were talking about it, was it a provocation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Quai d’Orsay, the DST,

Obviously there was a lot of vagueness around this whole story, until eventually things become more and more clear. A few weeks later, when we referred all of these protagonists to the judge at the courthouse, this magistrate telephoned me and said to me in a very ironic tone: Mr. Nart, I have had

Mr. Shi Peï examined. Pu and I can tell you that it’s not a woman, he used the expression: I can tell you that he has two well hung ones. To get to the bottom of this matter, he had to call on a doctor, whom Shi Peï Pu had

Strongly defended himself, who had bitten the doctor, who had retreated, and there were then several people who mastered him, and who examined his penis. And formally established his status as a man. The third evening I was in jail, I learned over the radio: the Chinese Mata Hari was a

Man. I said to myself: this is not possible. I was on the third floor of the bed, in jail, I fell twice during the night. Eight months later, we had a confrontation, I said to him: but why didn’t you tell me, and he replied superbly: we didn’t have time

. I said to him: can I see, he pulled down his pants. When I had the proof, that I saw that Shi Peï Pu was indeed a male, and had deceived me all my life, and that consequently Shi Peï Pu could not

Be the mother of Shi Du Du, I wanted to end life. I did attempt suicide with a razor blade, but it wasn’t enough to finish me off, and afterward, for months, I lived like a zombie. But what’s more, in jail. And I no longer had confidence, neither in myself, nor in anyone.

The Frenchman and the Chinese who spied for the benefit of China, and whose love story, quite strange, had surprised the magistrates in a certain way… The verdict fell, less than an hour ago, at the end of the extravagant espionage trial, tried since yesterday before the special assize court

In Paris. The Chinese artist as well as the attaché of the French embassy in Beijing, accused of having delivered “secret defense” documents to China , both were sentenced to 6 years of criminal imprisonment. For the attorney general, the two accused did indeed participate in a

Chinese secret service operation. Shi Peï Pu, intellectual and artist, deployed his great acting talent to seduce Bernard Boursicot. The French official, naive and simple, betrayed his country by delivering numerous documents to the Chinese authorities. For me, it was even shameful, that Shi Peï Pu was not a woman, and

That I had been fooled in that way… I would have been a member of the jury, and I told him so, I If I had been a member of the jury, I would have convicted him. Because he transmitted to a

Foreign power there is not a shadow of a doubt, according to the penal code, there is not a shadow of a doubt, he must be condemned. I didn’t feel like I was betraying at all, I felt like I was serving two countries, and I don’t see how, even now, sharing

Political opinions with the Chinese was betraying France. . It’s difficult to say, ordinary spy, extraordinary spy, a spy becomes extraordinary to the extent that he provides extraordinary information and documents. But the character himself was indeed ordinary. But big deals are often made by very ordinary people.

Abandoned actor in a too-large theater whose intrigues are beyond him, Bernard Boursicot serves his sentence in Fresnes then in the Melun detention center . Between the four walls of his cell, overcome by shame and regret, he will finally understand the perversion of Shi Peï Pu, whose

Most intimate secret he believed until the end to share. A realization that is all the more bitter for Bernard as Shi Peï Pu will hardly be worried. Under pressure from Beijing, François Mitterrand pardoned him in April 1987, less than a year after his conviction.

Shi Peï Pu was released because China put pressure on it, and signed big contracts with France, and politics trumps justice in these cases. For Bernard, the final affront is yet to come. Because against any rule which would dictate that a spy discovered and then imprisoned

Should then be expelled, Shi Peï Pu will be able to remain in Paris in complete peace. He survives, with Shi Du Du, thanks to a meager pension from the Chinese embassy and singing lessons. And he now exercises his talents as a seducer with Sinophiles, artists, and members of the Chinese diaspora…

It’s a Machiavellian story, but carried out with skill by someone who is naturally perverse, since he is dead we can tell say. I was Shi Peï Pu’s rattle, but at the same time for the frustrated actor, for him it was a kind of spectacle, his life, especially his life with me,

I consider that I am the hero of the stupidest story of the century, and that’s when I think about it, and there’s nothing to be proud of. Upon his release from prison, Bernard Boursicot would undoubtedly like to disappear, to blend into the benevolent shadow of anonymity, but his story has

Become bigger than him. It is very true that your story first inspired a play, which was created on Broadway in 1988, revived in around thirty countries, unfortunately not France, then a film by David Cronenberg which will be released in France under the title M Butterfly, with Jeremy Irons, which is no

Small thing, in your role, and then John Lone, John Lone who is a man, who plays the role of the singer. So how can this be? It’s true, if someone told me the story, I would hardly believe it. But has it happened to you? Yes, because I followed my passion,

I was, I was fascinated, in love… She forced you to spy for China, you were both condemned, and she cheated you in your sexuality even. Ah, that’s even more painful. Yes it’s even more painful, that’s obvious. It was a magnificent film, full of poetry, the role of Shi Peï Pu was

Close to the real one, a little less perverse than the real one. He was in a kind of great mental confusion, identifying himself afterwards with the characters who had been the heroes of Cronenberg’s film, of a Broadway play, etc. So his image had multiplied

Like in a mirror, and I think he no longer knew very well who he was. From now on, the destiny of Bernard Boursicot no longer belongs to him. He doesn’t just inspire David Cronenberg, Broadway and Hollywood. But also artists like Liu Foung, a rising star of contemporary Chinese painting.