The independently-minded daughter of lower-middle class French shopkeepers, Brigitte, one of three sisters, refused to marry the father of her child when she became pregnant. In this film, she reminisces about her family life beginning when she was about five years old, up to the present when she is in her early 20s. Of her two sisters, one has a nervous breakdown and the other one becomes something of a baby factory. Colorful anecdotes of her eventful life lend additional depth to her insights.
When Lise's car bumps Antoine's bike, they recognize each other from a brief fling 20 years before while at the Sorbonne. He's now a professor of Greek; she's loathe to tell him she's a police inspector. A call interrupts their first dinner date: a Deputy of the National Assembly has been murdered. She has a suspect, another Deputy, and must track him while deflecting Antoine's eye from her vocation. All roads in the inquiry lead to Christine Vallier, the dead Deputy's mistress, a beguiling 22-year-old whose mother ran the Assembly's snack bar. When more deputies die and Antoine learns Lise's identity, she must act quickly solve the crime and save her future.
In the middle of the night, deputy Philippe Dubaye wakes up his old friend Xavier Maréchal with disturbing news: he has just killed Serrano, a racketeer with extant political connections. Serrano kept proofs of Dubaye's involvement in corrupt dealings and was poised to use them against the deputy. Xavier readily agrees to cover up for his old pal Philippe, but he soon runs into difficulties. Nobody believes Dubaye's alibi. And everybody -- influential personalities, powerful businessmen, dubious go-betweens and the police -- wants to get hold of the documents that served to blackmail Dubaye; by all possible means...
Henri Savin has managed a trucking company for his lover, Dominique Montlaur, for many years. Now he is planning to leave her for Julie Manet, the woman he has made pregnant, and Dominique is hysterical. She first threatens suicide, then shows up at a meeting of Savin and Julie. Dominique tries everything she can think of to break Savin and Julie apart, to no avail. Frustrated in her efforts, she jumps off a cliff and dies. Savin insists that he and Julie lie to the police about the encounter, although Dominique's death was a suicide and therefore they had no direct hand in it. Detective Waldeck investigates Dominique's death.
After years of poverty, Carrier, a repairman, inherits a large sum of money upon his brother's death in an accident. Now rich, he decides it is time to make his mark and be known at any cost. Becoming more and more mentally unstable, he begins to threaten police and the government signing his tracts, "Armaguedon". A detective from Interpol heads the investigation and prepares a trap at an international conference of world leaders in Paris.
When Francois, a journalist, tours a big store for an article, he is chosen by the son of the newspaper's owner, Rambal-Cochet, as his new toy. Needing money and unwilling to quit his job, Francois agrees to this ridiculous assignment. Gradually befriending the spoiled boy, he induces him to play at making a newspaper, unveiling publicly the tyrannical way of life of the father. The powerful emotional climax we experience with the child astonishes both men.
A tough but honest cop must clear his name after a corrupt colleague implicates him in a murder in this French thriller. Ferrot is a hard-as-nails police detective who is attracted to a beautiful woman named Sylvia. Sylvia, however, is having an affair with Ganay, who happens to be Ferrot's superior on the force; Ganay happens to be married to Therese, who is handicapped. Sylvia is found murdered, and Ferrot is assigned to investigate; Ferrot is convinced that Ganay killed Sylvia because she wanted to end their relationship, but to his dismay, Ferrot discovers that the killer has placed a number of false clues that point the blame toward Ferrot.
Victor Vautier is incorrigible: he's in constant motion, working several cons at once, using different names and changing disguises. He's charming and outrageous, incapable of uttering a sentence that isn't embellished or an outright lie. His life goal is to make enough money to build a sea wall to protect Mont-Saint-Michel. Charlotte, a parole officer, shows up: she's young and seems taken in by Victor. He discovers she lives above the Senlus Museum, where her parents are the curators. With two pals he decides to steal a priceless El Greco triptych and then ransom it back to the cultural ministry. What will Charlotte do when she realizes he's used her to make a fortune?
Catherine Hubscher, laundress, saves the life of an Austrian nobleman with the complicity of her fiancé, Sergeant Lefebvre, the day when royalty collapses. And then the years pass ... Become Marshal of the Empire and Duke of Danzig, ex Sergeant Lefebvre always has for wife Catherine, the ex laundress; and this, in spite of the efforts made by the Emperor Napoleon to have him divorced, the Emperor blamed him strongly for the lack of distinction of Catherine. Faced with the Marshal's refusal, Catherine was summoned to the Emperor's house and the dialogue between them lacked heat to say the least, until the former lieutenant Bonaparte recognized in Maréchale Lefebvre, Catherine the laundress, who once , gave him credit for his laundering debts.
The descent into hell begins for Edouard, a disillusioned marginal, when he loses his job, and his wife leaves with his son. His meeting with a mysterious stranger, who claims to work for the secret services, leads him to commit the irreparable. Was it a trap or just a symptom of his madness? There is doubt...
A writer of pulpy book series in which he's the hero and his beautiful English roommate is the love interest attempts to finish his new book in time at the publisher's demand.