During the years of occupation and the Vichy regime in France, the Gaullist and resistance fighter Joseph Bridet, a somewhat unsuccessful journalist, finds himself ensnared by the collaborationist bureaucracy for unclear reasons while trying to reach de Gaulle in London with the help of his friends in Vichy. Even his hasty return to Paris does not save him; he is arrested and sent to an internment camp from which the Germans transport hostages for their retaliatory measures. The trap closes.