On October 24, 1940, Philippe Pétain met Adolf Hitler in Montoire and led the French into collaboration with the Nazis. A black page in the history of France, written by a man whom many then considered a hero: the winner of Verdun. At the start of the First World War, Pétain, then a colonel, was on the verge of retirement. It is in Verdun that he reveals himself. How was his legend born? Why did the marshal collaborate? Why did he choose to sweep away the Republic to establish a new regime of which he was the absolute leader?

Director Serge de Sampigny