Having first noticed this story at the end of August, I can now report that the story is finished. That is to say, first reading, first viewing of the Gambon version ('Maigret and the Minister'), second reading, second viewing of the Gambon version.
A story built around the collapse of a prestigious sanatorium for children, built in the mountains, the construction of which was the subject of a special report, a report which condemned the plans, was suppressed at the time and which has now gone missing altogether. Clearly lots of dirty deeds and backhanders in high places. Dodgy contractors. The sort of story which the French much prefer to the sort of smut that we like over here.
Quite a lot of the story is about the interaction of Maigret and his team with people from Sûreté nationale, which at the time Simenon was writing appeared to include some of the functions of our Special Branch and our Security Service. The people who looked after tricky investigations involving politics and politicians. One of the touches which would be recognised by a connoisseur was the reference in the Gambon version to the 'Big House', lifted from the Simenon version and presumably slang of the day (the mid 1950's) for the Sûreté, rather as some thriller writers write about the 'River House', as if that were the slang used by those in the know for the Secret Service headquarters on the river at Vauxhall. While I have always regarded dragging one or other species of secret squirrel into a crime series a sure sign of a script writer who has run out of ideas.
Another touch of the same sort is the glass in which the Minister serves Maigret his drink, the sort of small tumbler, still used in some working class French cafés for wine the last time I was there, rather than a glass with a stem. Used by Simenon as part of marking the Minister as being a boy from the country, like Maigret, rather than some Tory boy from a posh background. A tumbler which is retained but not highlighted in the Gambon version. Obscure glass apart, the boy from the country part of the Minister was rather lost in the Gambon version, apart from the sense that he was too decent and too old for the rough and tumble of national politics. I don't suppose anyone other than a connoisseur would notice the glass at all.
One gets the impression that Simenon has a rather jaundiced view of politicians, with this Minister being something of an honourable exception. With the other politician, Mascoulin, being a thoroughly unpleasant person, always making trouble from the sidelines, up for all kinds of dirty work, but never seeking any responsibility for himself. Never putting himself in the firing line.
Then we have a chap called Piquemal, who works at the same university - l'École des Ponts et Chaussées - as the famous professor who wrote the report, a chap who works as a surveillant. This word has been causing me some trouble as it is the same root as our surveillance and usually seems to be used for people like invigilators, nurses at mental hospitals and warders at prisons. I think that here it is a white collar teaching, rather than a blue collar position, but I have yet to settle on a satisfactory English equivalent.
I had more success with expressions built around 'en vouloir à quelqu'un', which I had more or less guessed after a while, with Simenon being quite fond of them, and which the dictionary confirms as meaning something like 'to be angry with someone'. So we might have 'il m'en veut d'avoir menti' for 'he's mad at me for lying'. Confused by 'il en veut à notre argent' for 'he's after our money'. But usually clear enough on the page.
Moving onto organisation, in the Gambon version it is rather as if Maigret works for his bête noire, the examining magistrate Coméliau, but the following story - 'Maigret et le Corps sans Tête', already mentioned for the second time at reference 2 - explains that there is actually a bunch of investigating officers and a bunch of examining magistrates, each with their own hierarchy, working in next-door buildings on the Quai des Orfèvres on the Île de la Cité in Paris, and there is an element of luck about how they get paired up for any particular investigation. Own hierarchies which are altogether missing from the Gambon version. And, I notice in passing, largely missing from 'Midsomer Murders'.
Furthermore, in the Gambon version, it is left that the bad guy, Mascoulin admits in committee to having taken a copy of the report. While in the original, he never admits to having it, while managing to give the impression that he might have. A sword of Damocles hanging over the bad guys, which he could use at any time - and in the meantime a useful lever. Now while Simenon is generally good on the ways of ministries, the goings on between permanent staff and their ministers and the goings on between ministers and journalists, I find this whole business of the missing report a bit improbable. Why would it have been suppressed? How could all trace of it have vanished from the relevant ministry? Why would Maigret not care about all the bad guys who had the report suppressed? But still a good story, even after several outings.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/maigret-chez-le-ministre.html.
Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/maigret-et-le-corps-sans-tete-suite.html.
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