Somewhere in France during the Middle Ages. Béatrice is impatient to see her father return from English captivity. She doesn't expect however that the father whom she loves from distance will be the most hateful person who will submit her and her family to abuse and humiliation.

Baker's apprentice Chris is sacked from his job for being late. Unwilling to give up the flat that goes with the job, he and his friends resort to squatting. Liv, a Swedish girl moves in and is soon followed by Léon the car mechanic and Rosette, a girl from the bakery.

In a time of war and disease, a young officer gallantly tries to help a young woman find her husband.

The furniture factory in which all the young guys in this film work is also full of older workers who make fun of their long hair, which for them is a badge of their independence. The boss, particularly, thinks long hair on men is dirty. When they refuse to cut their hair, he finds an excuse to fire them. The meaning of long hair is felt particularly deeply for one fellow, a painter, who, when he succumbs to his fathers' pleas that he cut his hair, turns his paintings to the wall and burns himself to death.

Elizabeth and her daughter Cecile spend their holidays at a lakeside resort in the French mountains. Elizabeth falls in love with a strange Italian, Giovanni, while young Cecile is courted by an apprentice cook. It seems that mother and daughter are drifting apart from each other, but then their holidays are over.

After a missed burglary, deux young cads take refuge in a retiring-pension sowing terror. On the call of one of the pensioners, the police catch them. But some of the old people are puzzled by their situation and decide to ask about them...