Section spéciale (Special Section) (Section spéciale)

"SPECIAL COURT"

What are you doing?

Are you statues?

Quick! Kneel!

Hurry!

God damn you!

Tears, protect yourselves.

Painful tears.

Cry, my country,

cry for yourself.

Evil has, unfortunately, come

and the night will fall upon you.

The day that came...

- It is a very good opera. - Prophetic too...

Cry, poor Russia!

Cry, sore people!

You are going to die...

AUGUST 1941

VICHY, government headquarters of Marshal Petain.

Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen

please, remain at your seats.

We will hear a message from our Head of State.

People of France, I have something important to tell you.

In various regions...

- George, wake up. - What is it?

... a wind of sickness is blowing,

which has disputed the authority of my government.

The orders are being badly executed.

This disorganization of ideas begets chaos...

...as, the cooperation offered

by the Chancellor of the Reich, on October 1940

a very kind act, given the circumstances,

is an important achievement.

I would also like to remind the American Republic

the reasons it should not be afraid

that the French ideal will decay.

Our parliamentary democracy has died.

The troops of the old regime are numerous.

We shall crush them,

along with all the enemies of the new order.

But at this point we have to stop their actions

and decimate their leaders.

No, Pascal. We are at Vichy and there is war.

France is destined to change the regime...

... otherwise, we are heading towards the abyss

which nearly devoured Spain in 1936,

only to be saved by the loyalty and sacrifice of its youth.

This is the burial of the third Republic

which committed suicide, right here, only a year ago.

This is the policy of the new Secretary of the Interior.

I have given him full initiative, within my line of policy.

As soon as he became minister, his policy is being implemented.

It's fantastic!

It's not even 24 hours since they proposed his nomination

and already they're implementing his policy.

And yes, it has been decided.

The activity of the party...

Did you know about this speech?

No, the decision was taken in a closed cabinet.

In 1917, I put an end to the riots.

In 1940, I put an end to the debacle.

Now, I intend to save you from yourselves.

We can trust our Minister of the Interior.

Did you know he fought with our army against the Reds?

They are calling for a cabinet of the civil justice and I don't know it.

Why would you?

I am the Minister of...

Civil justice concerns the Minister of the Interior, not you.

Mr. Minister of Justice, you shall be informed

in the next cabinet.

Are you worried, Minister?

Since this phony became Minister of the Interior...

Dad!

Dear friend, come for dinner next time you're in Paris.

It's a fight against our internal political enemies:

the anarchists, the communists...

But soon, the Germans will be in Moscow,

and then, the new order will reign in Europe.

My ancestress, Marie Adelaide Brinon,

who is an Ursuline,

has been a pleader between Leibniz and Bossuet,

to prepare the union of the churches of France and Germany

which was a way for the political approach

of the two countries.

Mr. Minister, what do you think on Head of State's speech?

I think that the Head of State,

is punishing those who wish to undermine the state

and is mainly a warning to the communists,

agents of a political system conceived in the ghettos

and realized in the steppe.

The French will see that the soviet system is useless.

A system which is supposed to be against capitalism

but with its painful methods of imposing the law

turns people into slaves or prisoners if they resist.

Let me have a report on tonight's speech...

...And on the Minister of the Interior.

Mr. Admiral!

- Are you returning to Paris tonight? - No, tomorrow.

- Goodnight, Mr. Ambassador. - Goodnight, Mr. Vice President.

- Good morning, Mr. Ambassador. - Good morning, Admiral.

- Are you returning to Paris? - Yes, so long.

Good morning, dear friend.

Dear friend, good morning.

The Emergency Law will soon be published.

I have already spoken with Speedy and Schmidt.

The Minister of the Interior is a "normalien".

What is a "normalien"?

It means that he graduated from the "Ecole Normal Suerieure"

It's a typical French way to rise to power.

The graduates, instead of teaching history or philosophy

often wind up in financial politics.

In a few months, our Minister of Interior

has organized the state apparatus.

There must be a place for France in European Germany.

- You think Europe will become German? - It already has.

Let us march! Let us march!

Let impure blood

water our furrows!

What! Foreign cohorts

would make the law in our homes!

What! These mercenary phalanxes

would strike down our proud warriors!

would strike down our proud warriors!

The Internationale...

Calm down, comrades.

We are now singing the Marseillaise.

Vile despots would have themselves

The masters of our destinies!

To arms, citizens...

Form your battalions,

Let's march, let's march!

Disperse!

Disperse!

Bastards!

Watch out, Pierre!

The enemy has been in our country for a year. What do we do?

We hand out leaflets

and organize strikes and demonstrations now and then.

- That is all the party wanted. - It is all the situations allowed for.

We were against the imperialistic war in 1939. Rightly so.

Do not forget that bourgeois democracy betrayed the republic of Spain.

Then we expected USSR to strengthen.

But the Nazis attacked and everything changed.

War against imperialism, became a popular war against fascists.

Strikes and demonstrations are no longer enough. We have to fight.

Have you read Maupassant?

- The story of Father-Milon? - I have.

Who is Father-Milon?

He was an old farmer during the occupation of France by Prussians.

- What was he doing? - Killing Germans with his scythe.

- At the end he... - We will do the same:

Killing the enemy's soldiers.

Using what? Scythes?

Why not? If we can't find anything else.

This is terrorism, and we always condemned that.

At least let us kill only members of the Gestapo.

How will we recognize them? They don't wear uniforms.

There is no option. We target for the uniform.

Without distinction.

Without discussion.

Martine talked to you about proletarian internationalism. You didn't answer.

There are workers among these soldiers, anti-fascists.

They might be in their own countries, as civilians.

But here, they are occupation forces.

Yesterday, they arrested some of our companions.

And we know very well what will happen to them.

There will be anti-fascists in the Firing Squad.

They will kill them, anyway.

Samuel Tyszelman, Jew, 20 years old,

Polish, lives in Paris. Guilty of participation

in the protest against German army.

Arm!

Fire!

Henri Gautherot, communist, 21 years old, not Jew,

Guilty of participation in the protest

and an attack against a member of the German army.

Fire!

- So? - We'll do what Father-Milon did.

- Kill German soldiers. - This is terrorism.

Look.

- This is for women. - That's all we have.

Inaccurate but manageable. It is for point-blank shots in the back.

- In the back? - Horrible!

This is murder.

We might kill workers, antifascists!

- We'll be killing invaders. Period. - Then, let's do it, brothers.

You have to eat a pud to tell if it's good.

- What on earth is this? - This is Engels.

You are a genius.

- I'll gladly kill Nazis. - Who else?

We need to be four.

- I 'm in. - So am I.

At the call of Maupassant,

the partisans get up.

Miss, please,

I... photo... Paris...

Day after tomorrow, at 8:00 am, at Barbes station.

I'll show you what we have to do.

You'll be covering me.

You will only intervene if something goes wrong.