The story centers around a graduating class of "less-gifted" students in a private Versailles high school. Only a miracle has brought the students this far along, and after a practical joke misfires and the whole school is dynamited, the students are in deep trouble. They have to present themselves in court for their punishment and it could not be worse: If they don't pass their high-school graduation exams, they go to prison!

Pomme is a meek and mild French beautician whose life takes a fateful turn during a vacation to Normandy. She becomes the lover of middle-class literature-student François. The relationship sours when François takes her home to meet his parents, thanks in no small part to their differing social backgrounds.

Pierrette, an active labor activist, marries Mario. He had little sympathy for his wife's political activities. Nevertheless, he takes part in a strikers' demonstration she leads, where he is bludgeoned to death by the CRS.

In Paris, the young photographer Ferdinand falls in love with Claire, a pickpocket. Shortly after, he is assaulted because he took pictures of the young woman with another man, Brady, his sponsor. The policeman Lorenzi is put on the case, but in love, Ferdinand does not want to denounce her. However, a stolen object that she offered him will allow his indictment: Claire will spend a year in prison. When she is released, Ferdinand marries her. Kerman, Ferdinand's new boss, employs Claire in his cabaret. She puts on a famous act during which she picks the pockets of the spectators, then gives the objects back at the end of the show. But Brady reappears, demanding 80% of the young woman's earnings, otherwise he will denounce Claire's bigamy, to whom he is still married! Ferdinand prepares to flee with his wife. When he finds her, he comes across the corpse of Brady, whom Claire has just killed.

Two adventurers and best friends, Roland and Manu, are the victims of a practical joke that costs Manu his pilot's license. With seeming contrition, the jokesters tell Roland and Manu about a crashed plane lying on the ocean floor off the coast of Congo stuffed with riches. The adventurers set off to find the loot.

The Marcenat couple seem to have everything they need to be happy. However, Odile's frivolity and Philippe's jealousy drive the couple apart. Philippe, manager of the family printing business, finds solace in Isabelle, a long-time employee at the paper mill. Isabelle's routine life, entirely devoted to her work, leads Philippe to strike up a romantic relationship with the playful young Misa. But, faced with Isabelle's grief, Philippe puts an end to the romance. When Odile, inconsolable since their break-up, finally commits suicide, Philippe realizes that she was his true love.

These two friendly delivery boys from a Parisian department store not only take their job to heart as much as possible, but also consider themselves responsible for the happiness of the customers they have to deliver to. This leads them successively to help, at the cost of incredible acrobatics, a young couple celebrating the first anniversary of their marriage, to mingle with the clientele of a rather disquieting doctor, to almost perish in an ambush that was of course not intended for them, and to avoid a domestic quarrel.

Charles and Jeanne Renard live with their young kids in a dormitory town. Everyday train and metro,work and return by train and metro to the dormitory town (the famous french sentence "Métro,boulot,dodo"). But how fragile is marital bliss ?

The "Védrines", whose head of family is a publisher, are well established in Paris. The "Pittuiti", on the other hand, are gypsies camping out in the suburbs. Young Zita belongs to the tribe and meets Théo Védrines, the publisher's son, a wild seducer. Zita is soon forced to tell her family that she is expecting a child. A scandal for the Pittuiti family, who instruct Zita's brother to apply the law of retaliation, Bruno must in turn seduce the pleasant Gisèle Védrines. And why not? But while Théo gradually becomes an anarchist, Bruno becomes more and more embourgeoise as Védrines discovers in him a real talent for writing. Still, Bruno and Gisèle will be as happy as Théo and Zita ever were.