A two-part TV-mini-series on the life of French politician and Resistence-fighter Jean Moulin from the time of the German invasion in June 1940 to his capture by Klaus Barbie in Caluire in June 1943.
The first part starts in June 1940 only a few hours before the German troops reach the city of Chartres. Jean Moulin, prefect of the department, exerts himself to calm down the people. He tries keep the shops open, organizes the help for the wounded and issue bulletins. When Germans arrive he mets them cooly but places himself at their disposal. But when they want him to sign a declaration that accuse Senegalese-French soldiers of having mistreated civilians he refuses to sign, is beaten up and sent to prison. As he believes that can`t bear the torture, he tries to cut his throat but is saved. Back on his post he executes all order from Vichy for the next five months, full of contempt for the collaborators but nevertheless reliable. Eventually he is unseated against the will of the Germans who wouzld have lliked to keep such a committed prefect. Moulin travel to Paris. He reactivates his contacts dating back to the time when he delivered arms to the Spanish republicans during the Civil War despite the embargo.
Here, he reunites with Gilberte, the woman of his life, who he loves more than anything else but who he sacrifices because he can`t offer what she expects of him: love and security.
He starts crisscrossing the country to arrange contacts between the scattered resistence groups.
The second part begins in January 1942. Moulin parachutes into France. He has become the personal representative of general de Gaulle an dis assigned to unite the various resistence groups. He therefore starts a double-life: in Eygalières he pretends to be a prefect waiting in his family home for whatever new task he is ordered to, everywhere else he is the clandestine boss. In Marseille, Lyon and Paris he meets the leaders of the Resistence. And he has good reason to impose himself upon them: he is the only one who can the money and the arms they need so desperately. Soon a heated argument ensues and Moulin is accused of sacrificing the identity of the seperate movements for the allmightiness of de Gaulle, of planning to restablish the old partiesa and of bebaving like a main-prefect. Eventually even Vichy offers him a post- which he turns down. In the following months Jean Moulin becomes more and more Max, and later Rex, and gets deeper and deeper into the underground.
He takes on a camouflage that allows him to maintain an old passion: painting.
He does not realize that the Germans are zeroing in on him. Klaus Barbie, heap of the Gestapo in Lyon, receives information from right-wing Frenchmen.
Pressure on the Risitence increases relentlessly, more and more members are arrested but Moulin continues. On June 9th, 1943 general Delestrint, cmomander of the "armée secrète" is arrested in Paris. In order to find a succcessor Moulin arranges a meeting and is himself arrested in Caluire on June 21st, 1943.