Jean Devandière

In L'Heure zéro, the French adaptation of Agatha Christie's Towards Zero for the TV series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie, Jean Devandière is the head of the TV Nord station and the parallel of Camilla Tressilian from the original novel. When his news anchor Roger Foucher is found dead, apparently from a drowning accident while fishing, Devandière takes the unprecedented move of appointing Audrey Fontaine (the Audrey Strange parallel) as the station's first woman anchor. This is a controversial decision which soon attracts death threats to himself but it also inspires Alice Avril to resign from her newspaper to seek a job at the station, hoping to assist Audrey. Devandière is murdered early in the episode and untangling the web of intrigue and relationships in the station forms the main plot of the show. Jean Devandière is portrayed by Christian Van Tomme.

Like Lady Tressilian in the original, Devandière is a benefactor of the celebrity TV chef Maxime Beaumont (the Nevile Strange parallel). Jean bought over Maxime's failing restaurant and kept it afloat. He also gave Maxime a slot presenting the cooking show for his TV channel. In Devandière will, the restaurant reverts to Maxime, thus giving him a motive for murder. Devandière also likes Audrey and is her main backer. Unlike the original, she does not really benefit from his death. In fact, she lost out because Ted Gautier, (the Ted Latimer parallel) takes over and promotes Claire Beaumont (the Kay Strange parallel) to the anchor position. For this reason, both Ted and Claire can be said to have motives in the murder. This is in contrast to the original where Ted Latimer does not benefit at all, and neither does Kay Strange although she might have the mistaken impression that she stood to benefit as Nevile's wife. Marie Dupuis, Devandière's secretary, might be thought of as a kind of Mary Aldin parallel but she does not benefit from the death of her boss at all.

Unlike in the original, Devandière died not by bludgeoning but it appears by stabbing. Later, lab analysis showed that he had been drugged with strychnine before being stabbed, suggesting he had died first from poisoning. The handedness of his killer and the way he handled the knife is not a factor at all in this adaptation.