Michel Debré

Writer, journalist, explorer, filmmaker, communist militant, freedom fighter. Truths and lies. A plot twist. Politician. General De Gaulle's shadow. Overwhelmed by the weight of power. The numerous exploits of André Malraux (1901-1976).

Charles de Gaulle, the first president (1958-1969) of the Vth Republic, France’s current system of government, left his mark on the country . He was statesman of action and has been compared to a monarch. This film depicts the general’s personality through the great events of his presidential term, at a time when the world was undergoing considerable changes.

On October 4, 2018, France celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Fifth Republic. It is a republic born in the throes of the Algerian War and one which—from the day it was founded by General de Gaulle until the presidency of a very Jupiterian Emmanuel Macron—has been assailed as a “Republican monarchy” by partisans of a more assertive parliamentarian state. By revisiting the struggle of those who dared oppose the new regime — only to suffer a crushing defeat on September 28, 1958, when they were barely able to garner 20% of the vote against the constitutional text — this film shines a powerful new light on the origins of the Fifth Republic and its consequences for the next 60 years. It is a constitutional debate that planted the seeds for a complete upheaval of the French political landscape, on the left in particular, and set the country in motion toward what would be called the Union of the Left.

Robespierre, a child of the Enlightenment, passionate about justice and concerned with order, is thrust into the storms of the Revolution. He becomes one of its most tragic figures. The guiding thread of this dramatic development is Robespierre’s own speech. Excerpts from his major addresses are thus staged, emphasizing the contradictions of a man who advocates for the abolition of the death penalty yet justifies the Reign of Terror, who tirelessly fights for universal suffrage but helps establish an exceptional regime. His life and exercise of power are confronted, thirty years apart, with the analyses and judgments of historians and political figures from the Bicentennial and the early 21st century: Michel Vovelle, Michel Biard, Hervé Leuwers, Patrice Gueniffey, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, Michel Debré, Lionel Jospin, Jean-Louis Bourlanges, and Alexis Corbière.