Pierre Vielhescaze

Bored with the limited and tedious nature of provincial life in 19th-century France, the fierce and sensual Emma Bovary finds herself in calamitous debt and pursues scandalous sexual liaisons with absolute abandon. However, when her volatile lifestyle catches up to her, the lives of everyone around her are endangered.

Simon, a Jewish police inspector, arrests Karim, a Muslim, in the bust of a drug smuggling cargo ship, only to realize that Karim is an undercover agent from the military intelligence, whose mission he was not aware of. The two men pursue the narc investigation, which will lead them to confront middle eastern terrorists together.

Argenteuil, July 1973. Five unstable, insecure buddies pass the boredom by pilfering in the stores and revving up their motorcycles. On the eve of July 14th, during a trip to Bastille, a motorcycle paradise, one of them, Roger, gets into a fight with a policeman and is wounded. While fleeing, he meets a young "runaway" who helps him escape the search and rejoin Anne, "his wife". Despite a rather incredible maneuver, the two boys break into an apartment and kidnap the occupants. Anne and Roger don't manage to reach each other "discreetly", and the adventure ends stupidly: surrounded by the police, Roger makes a false move and throws the motorcycle into the ditch. When they get out of hospital or prison, life starts all over again.

Charles-Edmond, the eldest of the Larmentiel brothers, decides to return to La Rochelle, his hometown to die there. Forty years earlier he had been driven out by his father. Before passing away, the old eccentric announces that he has a hidden son, Émile, a fisherman to whom he wishes to bequeath his property. François, the younger brother, whom Charles-Edmond hates, is eyeing the inheritance to bail out the powerful family business, a veritable fishing trust, and will try to appropriate the affection and property of this inopportune heir. Émile, meanwhile, is too busy arguing with Fernande, a beugland singer, to suspect what awaits him...

The story is based on Voltaire's tale "Le monde comme il va" ("The world as it is"). Sent by the genie who presides over the destiny of Persepolis (Paris!), the Scythian Babouc carefully informs himself of everything, to tell the genie whether or not to destroy the city. This is the pretext for a series of interviews, scenes taken on the spot or reconstructed in the studio. We meet a musician who lives for his art and a Marxist historian, both of them optimists in the end; but also a war widow and an economically weak old lady: while the "fureur de vivre" gives free rein to the Golf Drouot and socialites hide their turpitudes behind a façade of good manners. A large, poorly housed family bravely faces up to its fate, and the children are happy; a working-class household talks about the union struggle, inhumane working conditions and reasons for hope. Finally, a poet sums it all up by talking about his commitment to the service of mankind.

The vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia, knowing he's being watched and followed, is one day arrested and put into solitary confinement by his blackmailers.

A shady Parisian tries to take advantage of a family of French-descended Algerians forced to move to France.