Series / A French Village

Produced by France 3 from 2009 to 2017, A French Village (original title "Un village français") is a French historical series.

It follows residents of the fictional town of Villeneuve in the Jura region of France during World War II, with the country being under German Occupation. Residents deal with the struggles of life under occupation, choices whether to collaborate or resist, shortages, corruption, interpersonal conflicts, antisemitism and brutality from both sides.

It aired for seven seasons, with the series covering events from pre-war until after the liberation.

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A French Village provides examples of:

• Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Hubert, a French POW, came home and found that his wife had born a son with another man. For the boy's sake, he'd claimed him, but Hubert clearly resents her for this.
• Abusive Parents: As a result of her paranoia after World War II, Hortense starts to believe that Tequiero (her adopted son) has been trying to kill her, and thus locks him in a closet to protect herself.
• Affably Evil: Müller is usually quite polite and friendly, even very charming. His feelings for Hortense also seem genuine. Even so, he's a ruthless torturer and organized mass murders of Jews in the Soviet Union without qualms.
• Age-Gap Romance: Daniel has relationships with two women significantly younger than him. Hortense isn't quite as much (her actress is twenty years younger than Daniel's). Sarah definitely was though (a nearly thirty year age gap between the actors).
• All Gays Are Pedophiles: A rare example of a woman occurs as, after learning that Marguerite is a lesbian, soon Lucienne becomes worried over her being in contact with girls, as their teacher. Jules insists this is silly though, saying he's done the same thing (they're all teachers), and she's mollified.
• All Germans Are Nazis: Averted. In fact, the Communists initially go out of their way to distinguish Nazis from ordinary, working class German soldiers whom they insist must not be lumped together. Even when the Communists begin resistance, they insist upon targeting only officers because of this view, and one shouts out "Long live the German Communist Party!" when he's shot, acknowledging this symbolically. Most German characters don't express Nazi views, even Müller, who's in the SD (the SS's intelligence service) so presumably a Nazi. Even their antisemitic operations are also engaged in by French people.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Hortense finds Müller quite attractive and has an intermittent relationship with him. She even explains his appeal as being how cold and selfish he is. Even the fact he tortured Hortense at one point to coerce her husband into giving up information or related how he oversaw mass murders in the Soviet Union doesn't change her view, which pushes this to it's greatest extreme.
• Anachronic Order: Used heavily in the last season. The plot threads of that season—trials of the collaborators, a labor dispute at the mill, Hortense getting committed to an asylum—are intercut in every episode with flash-forward scenes decades into the future, as late as the early 21st century, showing what happened to the various characters after the war.
• Anyone Can Die: Several major characters are killed by the end of the series, along with numerous minor ones.
• Appeal to Force: A lot of times German officials simply ignore French objections when they break the Armistice's terms, since there's nothing that can do about it as the Germans have the power.
• Argentina Is Nazi-Land: By the 60s, former SS officer Müller is living in Paraguay, working as a trainer of torturers with the Schneider dictatorship.
• Armored Closet Gay: Lucienne, after acting quite homophobic toward Marguerite, kisses and even has sex with her (though after she apologizes). In her case she's probably bisexual, since her previous relationships were with men and there's no sign she didn't like them.
• Artistic License – Military: In the series' first season, the commanding officer of Villeneuve's German garrison is addressed as "Mein Kommandant", a literal (and incorrect) German translation of the French way of addressing to an officer having the rank of major (German officers aren't addressed this way, not to mention "Kommandant" isn't even a real German word). The correct phrase would be "Herr Major".
• Asshole Victim: Louis, an openly antisemitic Vichy official who tries to blackmail Raymond into getting part of a Jewish-owned company when it's "Aryanized" (i.e. transferred into gentile hands) is shot by him instead.
• Auto Erotica: Raymond and Marie, after breaking off their affair, later have another tryst in his car.
• Awful Truth: Max, a French Communist liberated from a concentration camp by the Red Army, spent time in the Soviet Union before being sent home. All his comrades are eager to hear about what they believe is a worker's paradise, but he pleads weariness and declines. Later he confesses to Edmond what it's really like-constantly being watched by the secret police, and thousands having been shot in the purges under Stalin. It's clear that he's shaken to the core, given that Western Communists had lionized the Soviet Union and denied such atrocities earlier.
• Bedlam House: Hortense, after developing a paranoid disorder, is sent to a psychiatric hospital where she's "treated" with hot baths, electroconvulsive therapy, drugs and restraints that do nothing except exacerbate her condition (as now she's sensibly afraid of what the staff will do). This is very realistic, unfortunately, for the 1940s. Even worse, many patients are being left to die in a building they call "Purgatory" because with food shortages they can't all be fed.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: Marchetti is sentenced to death for murder, and has Rita smuggle in poison because he wants it on his terms. He takes it and dies with her beside him.
• Bigot with a Crush: Jean Marchetti is a French policeman who helped round up Jews and holds antisemitic views. He falls in love though with a Jewish woman named Rita, getting into a relationship and saving her from deportation to the East. They conceive a child and discuss marrying. After this, he grows more sympathetic to Jews, helping a Jewish family to escape. This doesn't mean he entirely becomes a better person though. Rita leaves him in anger when she learns he let her mother be shipped away to Poland, and when she's back from Switzerland (where Jean sent them for safety) doesn't want him to have any part of their son's life. However, he still saves them from being sent to a death camp, this time even shooting a German officer in doing so.
• Blackmail: Jules gets Lucienne to do what he says at one point by threatening that he'll reveal she'd been in a relationship with a German soldier (who fathered her daughter), which would end her career and lose her custody.
• Blackshirt: A fair number of French people willing serve the Vichy regime and German occupiers, not just in the more innocuous ways, but eagerly aiding antisemitic persecution. Many express their pleasure that they can now do these things which were prevented before and had been clearly just waiting for an opportunity. Some are even unhappy when the Germans are not brutal enough for them.
• Body Horror: Kurt returns suffering severe burns from an attack while he was inside a tank over his right side.
• Bothering by the Book: Daniel and other French officials who don't like what's going on will be sticklers for the rules as a means of obstruction. This only somewhat works though, as a lot of times they're simply ignored.
• Bury Your Gays:
  • Louis is killed before we even learn that he's gay, though he was only a bit character (and pretty unsympathetic to boot). His death does provide motivation for Jérôme, his lover, to swear revenge on his killer.
  • Marguerite, a lesbian, is introduced and killed off within a few episodes.
• The Bus Came Back: Kurt is shipped to the Eastern Front after it's found he was in a relationship with Lucienne, as she's French (forbidden by German military regulations). Müller is also transferred to Kiev. In a later season, both return.
• Bus Crash: Sarah gets deported along with other Jews to Poland. Later it turns out that she died in Auschwitz of typhus.
• The Butcher: Jean Marchetti is labeled "The Butcher" for his participation in a massacre within Villeneuve.
• But We Used a Condom!: Kurt expresses surprise when Lucienne gets pregnant, because he says they'd been so careful about things.
• Cain and Abel: Daniel and Marcel are very much opposites. Daniel is bourgeois: a doctor, deputy mayor (then mayor when his superior dies) and moderate politically. Marcel is a manual laborer, Communist activist and committed to the revolution. The pair are also very different in temperament. Daniel is far more calm, temperate and very tolerant about others' actions. Marcel is hot-headed, quite reckless and holds deep grudges.
• Carpet of Virility: Daniel has a full chest of hair, as seen when he's lying beside Sarah once after they've had sex.
• Cassandra Truth:
  • Judith doesn't believe it when Mr. Cohen says the Nazis will kill all the Jews, insisting that they need workers.
  • Hortense is told by a Holocaust survivor that Sarah died in Auschwitz from typhoid just after it was liberated, with her last wish being for Daniel to know she loved him. After her prior paranoid behaviors though Daniel dismisses her muddled account later, believing that it's just another fantasy of hers.
• Category Traitor: All collaborators, naturally, are viewed as traitors by French Resistance groups. Many are punished for treason as the war ends, whether after trials or with summary execution.
• The Cavalry: Müller and Hortense are rescued by American soldiers before he's about to be shot by SS border guards for desertion (with her condemned for being with him) who arrive Just in Time.
• Cessation of Existence: Discussed by Marcel and Philippe in prison. The former believes in this, while the latter insists there must be something more.
• Child of Forbidden Love: Kurt and Lucienne's child, due to him being a soldier in the German occupation, while she's French (people view such relationships very dimly).
• Chummy Commies: The Communists are portrayed, if not wholly positively (they can be quite ruthless, and many rigidly follow the Party line even when it's misguided) at least somewhat sympathetically. However, many non-Communist characters dislike them greatly. This isn't entirely unjustified as, while on the "good" side, they are still ruthless, wishing to take control over the entire Resistance and later France.
• Les Collaborateurs: The French government officials collaborate, mostly not out of any sympathy for the Germans, but to protect their people. Businessmen like Raymond also work with the Germans, though again not from sympathy and he tries to help Jewish businessman Crémieux whose company is being seized. Others however like those from the Vichy regime are enthusiastic collaborators in many cases. Sarah though tells Daniel that honest, good people such as him who collaborate aid others who aren't, since the evil ones couldn't do it without their help. He's visibly shaken by her statement.
• Cyanide Pill: A captured French resistance fighter uses a hidden cyanide capsule to kill himself with Daniel's (very reluctant) help rather than be tortured into giving up information.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: The series showcases attitudes common in 1940s France. For instance, many French people are antisemites, with officials happily helping strip Jews of their property and rights. Lucienne's father also thanks Jules for marrying her, because being a single mother would dishonor their family. Homosexuality is also viewed pretty negatively, with De Kervern initially suspecting Jérôme murdered his lover Louis because he asserts "crimes of passion are common among queers". Lucienne, though very sweet usually, reacts quite negatively to learning Marguerite is a lesbian, saying "people like you" should be locked up and fearing she's a danger to the underage girls they teach. Many men don't like taking orders from women either, or express disbelief when they find they're in positions of authority.
• Depraved Homosexual: Corrupt, highly antisemitic Louis turns out to be gay. Jérôme, his lover, shares his view.
• Disappeared Dad: Jean Marchetti relates that he didn't have a father growing up, so he's determined to be in his son's life. However, as his son's mother is a Jew (plus their boy, by Nazi racial laws) they must flee for Switzerland. Then after they meet again, she doesn't want Jean around and he's also a wanted fugitive, so this doesn't really work out.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The Germans take twenty people hostage, to shoot in retaliation for just one of their officers being killed if the killers don't surrender. Daniel manages to get it reduced, but it's still ten who they shoot. In other places, it's mentioned they shot fifty hostages for such attacks. Later they up the count to 100 hostages for each German killed. However, Müller admits it's only driving more people to join the Resistance.
• Draft Dodging: There's a non-military example with many young Frenchmen running off to avoid forced labor in Germany which they're conscripted into.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Some resistance fighters in gendarmes' uniforms stop a German truck to seize the arms they think it's carrying (however, it was actually transporting soldiers, causing a shootout).
• Driven to Suicide: Mrs. Cohen killed herself after Judith (at the end of her rope too) said she couldn't see her daughter due to being "hysterical". Another Jewish couple also killed themselves after learning they would be going to Poland. Josephine, Raymond's second wife, throws herself from a window after she's threatened by the police.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Müller, despite torturing suspects and acting otherwise ruthless, seems to genuinely love Hortense. However, then he's willing to torture her so Daniel will talk, making it possibly subverted. From his attitude though he may not view it as contradictory, just a part of his job.
• Everyone Has Lots of Sex: Every main character pretty much gets at least one sex scene, or more often multiple ones, to varying degrees of explicitness, along with minor characters.
• Face Death with Dignity: While facing the firing squad, the Milice members begin singing their song until they get shot, shaking the executioners with this display.
• Faking the Dead: Marcel helps Suzanne fake her death when he's ordered to kill her.
• Fanservice Extra: A French prostitute and a German soldier have sex pretty explicitly while Marcel sneaks into the room to steal the man's gun.
• Final Solution: Knowledge of the Holocaust slowly builds, with a few characters knowing or believing Jews are being killed in the East initially, then more realizing over time.
• Forbidden Love:
  • Lucienne and Hortense both have relationships with Germans, which many French people find to be treasonous ("horizontal collaboration"). It's also forbidden by German military regulations.
  • Furthermore, same-sex relationships are taboo, though Marguerite actually uses this to cover up her even more illicit Resistance activities once. Though having sex isn't illegal, she's still been arrested by police multiple times (probably for other things as a form of harassment).
• Forced to Watch: Antoine and Suzanne can only watch helplessly from hiding while a resistance fighter is killed along with his family by the Milice (being heavily outgunned, there is nothing they can really do).
• Functional Addict: Müller is addicted to morphine he uses for dealing with the pain of an old war injury. Usually he's fine, but when his supply is cut off he struggles greatly.
• Give the Baby a Father: Jules proposes marriage to Lucienne so that her baby can have a father, after Kurt is being sent East. She accepts.
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Lucienne's priest warns against having an abortion, saying that is unforgivable, but this is treated neutrally by Marie, Judith and Henri (the first two initially help her). When she tries to induce one herself though it fails and she's injured doing so. Daniel refuses to perform one, so she continues her pregnancy. Rita also decides to have an abortion immediately, then changes her mind at Jean's suggestion.
• Grey-and-Grey Morality: Neither the French nor the Germans are saints. While the French are of course shown as in the right to resist the German occupation, they're also brutal, corrupt, etc., just like the Germans.
• Happily Married: Jules and Lucienne grow into a happy couple after their marriage (initially to save her from being an unwed mother). Unfortunately, in Season 6 things get bad with them.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Daniel offers himself in place of civilians who have been taken hostage by the Germans. This is rejected by the German HQ, but Kollwitz admired him for his offer nonetheless.
  • Hortense later switches places in the Jewish prison with Sarah, so the latter can escape. She's nearly shipped off to Poland after this, which the viewer knows would mean death.
• Heroic Suicide: A French resistance fighter kills himself, since otherwise he'd be tortured into giving up people who would be killed later themselves.
• Heteronormative Crusader: Lucienne gets quite upset when she learns Marguerite's a lesbian, telling her she thinks people like her should be locked up, and fears she's a danger to children. She gets over this quickly though, then apologizes and sleeps with Marguerite.
• Hollywood Atheist: Müller states he doesn't believe in God at one point, while he's quite the brutal agent with the Nazi German SD, torturing suspects regularly. Judith, however, is a good character and says she's not a believer, along with Jules. Mr. Cohen is an atheist too and portrayed quite sympathetically.
• Honey Trap: Marguerite seduces a German soldier to get his key for the radio room so Lucienne will sabotage it.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Natacha, a prostitute who Henri meets, not only is a very nice woman, but also risks her life to aid a resistance group by gathering information on the Germans.
• Hypocrite: Daniel calls out a man who calls him a collaborator for denouncing a Jewish neighbor of his to the Germans-a far worse collaboration, given the Jews' fate.
• I Have Your Wife: Müller regularly detains people's relatives, then uses threats against them so they'll talk.
• The Immodest Orgasm: Hortense gets quite loud while having sex with Müller, shouting "Encore! Encore!" at him.
• Inappropriately Close Comrades: Marcel and Suzanne become a couple, despite relationships between members being forbidden under Communist Party regulations.
• Informed Judaism: We get no indication that Sarah Meyer or Judith Morhange are Jewish aside from being identified as such, though Sarah's last name is common among Ashkenazim and they both have traditional Jewish first names (though they're not uncommon for Christians too). We never seen any sign they practice Judaism (of course, many European Jews were secular or even converted Christians at the time). The same goes for the Jewish family who flee and the Crémieuxes. Judith at least says she's not a believer, and thus Jewish in only the ethnic or cultural sense.
• Interrupted Suicide: Jean Marchetti comes home and finds Eliane tried to hang herself in guilt at Josephine's death. He saves her though before it's too late.
• Irony: Müller relates to a horrified Hortense that he'd made Jews dig their graves before being shot in the Soviet Union, specifically one who obeyed him with alacrity and dug very well, wondering just why the man did that so willingly. He's caught later trying to sneak into Germany with false papers after deserting, and the SS guards make him dig his own grave too (very willingly, in terror). Müller presumably answered his own question about whatever the man's reasons were before he gets rescued.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Torture is regularly used against suspects in German custody, both physical (beating, burning with lit cigarettes) and psychological (threats against their loved ones).
• Just Following Orders: A lot of French officials excuse themselves for collaborating this way, along with Germans.
• Kangaroo Court: Jules promises the group of Milice a fair trial so they'll surrender, and honestly tries to deliver. However, most of the judges are obviously biased against them from the start, then he's ordered by his superior to insure all of them are shot as an example to other Milice who have been shooting people in different places without trial. Their defense attorney, Daniel, is overruled no matter how much merit his objections have, as they also limit considering each case to merely fifteen minutes. As a compromise, they acquit four, but convict all the rest and give them the death sentence, carried out on the next day without appeal. The Milice members themselves recount how they gave a group of Communists a show trial too.
• Karma Houdini: Müller, a brutal SS officer who'd tortured and murdered French resistance fighters along with participating in massacres of Soviet Jews, escapes all charges. He's let off because the US wants information he has, and last seen in Paraguay, aiding the Paraguayan dictatorship in the same methods he had used to torture prisoners during the 1960s.
• Kavorka Man: Raymond is not very handsome, nor particularly charming. Nonetheless, he has no trouble getting attractive women, from his wife to Marie and even his housekeeper, who practically throws herself at him when he's even less appealing (down with an injury from being shot). They marry after Raymond's wife divorces him.
• Law of Inverse Fertility:
  • Lucienne gets pregnant by Kurt, when he says they had been taking care to not have it happen.
  • Rita later also gets pregnant unintentionally by Jean.
• Lipstick Lesbian: Marguerite, who's feminine as the next woman per 1940s French standards, it turns out is a lesbian, having a photo of her girlfriend under her pillow. Lucienne it turns out is more of a lipstick bisexual, since she's equally feminine and sleeps with Marguerite but her other relationships were with men.
• The Loins Sleep Tonight: Antoine can't perform when he's seduced by Suzanne (it's also his first time). She assures him it's common, and neither really minds.
• Lonely Funeral: Only Gustave, Daniel and Suzanne come to Marcel's funeral.
• Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Maria has casual sex with a resistance fighter in the forest.
• Man Bites Man: Hortense bites a nurse while in a panic inside the psychiatric hospital.
• Mercy Kill: Kurt asks Jules to kill him and escape his pain that way. Jules does kill him eventually, though it's unclear if it was for this or simple jealousy/revenge as Kurt slept with his wife.
• Minion with an F in Evil: Alban was essentially roped into joining the Milice, the Vichy French State Sec, to avoid his forced labor in Germany. He obeyed his godfather's order to murder two children, but loathes himself for it. Alban only did this because he was taught to obey him from childhood.
• Mirroring Factions: The French Resistance later hang and shoot people without trial, just like the Germans.
• The Mistress: Three adulterous relationships on the show are long-term:
  • Marie is with Raymond, although they later break it off.
  • Hortense and Müller, who get a fake marriage certificate later.
  • Sarah and Daniel, until she goes into hiding to escape arrest for being Jewish.
• Modesty Bedsheet: After their failed attempt to have sex, Suzanne is shown with the sheet around her breasts, but Antoine is lying bare-chested beside her.
• Morning Sickness: Rita vomiting after eating eggs in the morning is the first sign she's pregnant.
• Mrs. Robinson:
  • Marie gets a lot of attention from Antoine, who's only a little older than her son Raoul. Raymond, his brother-in-law, is unhappy with this and discourages her from getting into a relationship with him. She curtails his interest by having sex with someone else where he can see them (who's also much younger than her). Most of the men whom she's with however were not that young.
  • Suzanne is also attracted to Antoine (who's at least a decade younger) and seduces him, though he can't perform.
• Ms. Fanservice:
  • Marie is shown partly naked more than once after getting up from bed with Raymond, then later also while having sex with other men.
  • Hortense gets multiple sex scenes, the most explicit for any main character, and slight nudity.
• Nice Guy: Jules is a cheerful, friendly man whose compassion drives him to help Lucienne by marrying her, join the Resistance and aid imprisoned Jews in escaping. Lucienne, who he marries, is also (mostly) very sweet (though she has bad moments). They fit well together.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • Philippe accuses Marcel of not being so different from him while they're talking in prison, and the pair do realize their many shared traits.
  • Rita, while in Palestine following the war, learns Jewish partisans massacred an entire Arab village, including women and children (which Arab fighters are now retaliating for). She notes that "we're just like everybody else", obviously thinking about similar atrocities against Jews in the recent Holocaust (she's a survivor, like many Jewish immigrants there).
• Obliviously Evil: Müller is too absorbed with his story, hardened from his experience or indoctrinated into thinking it's fine to even notice Hortense's horror at hearing him describe how he supervised mass murders of Jews in the Soviet Union. He doesn't appear to realize that casually propositioning her once he's finished would offend her either.
• Occupiers Out of Our Country: Driving the Germans out of France naturally is the French Resistance's motive.
• Outdoor Bath Peeping: Antoine and his friends see a young Frenchwoman bathing naked in the river, whom they spy on with binoculars. Then they realize she's with a German, and decide to take his gun.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: The Milice were so vicious that most resistance fighters have no desire hold fair trials of them. Most are just shot upon capture without a trial at all, with the rest given a show trial and then shot. It's noted that the Milice did both these things commonly themselves.
• Pet the Dog: Jean largely helps the Vichy French and Germans in rounding up Jews or resistance fighters. Once, however, after he falls in love himself with a Jewish woman, he helps two Jews to escape.
• Playing Sick: Hélène is counseled to fake meningitis and so escape from the makeshift prison for Jews. Later, Lucienne also fakes some problem with her baby so Gestapo agents leave the house. However, it doesn't fool them entirely-they hang around to nab Hélène after she leaves the house.
• Police Brutality: Both the French and German police beat people or torture them routinely.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Müller stops the French gendarmes from raiding a resistance group and simply killing them not out of compassion but since he wants them alive to answer questions. Most are later killed despite this though as they try to escape.
• Public Execution: The Germans and the Milice shoot or hang numerous people publicly as an example to others. Later, the Resistance after the Liberation start the same thing in reprisals.
• Rape as Drama: Müller rapes Lucienne offscreen when she appeals for his help.
• Rape Discretion Shot: As Müller begins to force himself on Lucienne, things fade out.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Daniel Larcher, mayor of Villeneuve, is always trying to help and smooth things over.
  • Kollwitz, the local German CO, is mostly a reasonable fellow who is willing to bend so far as he can when he's negotiating with Villeneuve's officials. He also reigns in Müller multiple times, then gets him shipped off for Kiev.
• Released to Elsewhere: People are vague as to where Jews go in the end, openly admitting in many cases that they don't know. Only a few know (or accept) the truth.
• Reminiscing About Your Victims:
  • After he comes back from the Soviet Union, Müller tells Hortense (who's horrified) that he'd overseen mass murders of Jews there, happily talking about it and wondering at why one dug his own grave so willingly.
  • The Milice leader Janvier happily talks about massacring an entire family after he returns from doing it. Later, his successor and other men talk about how they had a show trial of Communists, with all the "defendants" horrified to see that their benches were actually coffins, plus mockingly singing the Communist anthem "The Internationale" to them first.
• La Résistance: Multiple resistance groups are seen, with tactics ranging from just printing dissident flyers to assassinating Germans.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: After the Liberation, the French Resistance start making reprisals against collaborators, usually without bothering to hold trials. These range from extrajudicial executions to shaving women's heads for sleeping with Germans and publicly shaming them.
• Sadistic Choice: Daniel has to decide which of two people will be shot after he's negotiated a reduction of the hostages with Kollwitz. Along with Sauvier he was also forced to pick ten people who would be shot, or twenty died instead.
• Scapegoat: After the Resistance manage to openly march through Villeneuve for the Remembrance Day celebrations, Philippe gets sentenced to death by the Germans for not preventing it (despite him being a fervent, loyal collaborator who tried as best he could).
• Secret Police: The SD (the SS's intelligence service) is a menacing presence under Heinrich Müller in Villeneuve, ruthlessly hunting down and torturing resistance members. Conversely, the French RG were already around before investigating Communists, and continue their work into the war as collaborators. Later, the Gestapo appear, hunting down Jews.
• Secret Relationship: Due to the stigma against French people involved with the German occupiers, both Lucienne and Hortense try to hide the fact they're seeing Germans, though some people still find out (it's also forbidden by German military regulations).
• Sex for Services: Hortense performs oral sex on Marchetti offscreen to get his help on Daniel's behalf, who's been imprisoned by Müller.
• Sexless Marriage: Hortense mentions to Daniel that they haven't been having sex for a while. He rebuffs her advance, and this seems to be the reason she cheats on him.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: Most of the time when two characters are about to have sex, there's a cutaway. Exceptions exist though (such as with Hortense and Müller).
• Shot at Dawn:
  • The Germans arrest twenty random French civilians when some Communist resistance members kill a German officer. Daniel gets this down to ten, but can't do any more. They are shot by firing squad.
  • Marcel and Philippe are also later shot this way.
  • All of the condemned Milice prisoners are also shot by firing squad.
  • Servier is shot as a traitor for collaborating, plus handing over people to be killed after the war's end.
• Slut-Shaming: Frenchwomen known or suspected to have had sex with Germans get publicly denounced as sluts and whores (whether or not they were actually promiscuous).
• Smoking Hot Sex: Müller smokes after having sex with Hortense once. Raymond does the same thing after he has sex with Marie in his car.
• The Social Darwinist: The Milice leader Janvier gives his godchildren a hammy speech expressing his views, saying humans are animals living by one law: dominate or be dominated. In order to dominate, he says they must do terrible things, and blames his side's defeat on not doing enough of them.
• Sociopathic Soldier: Janvier, the Milice leader, gleefully orders the whole family of a resistance fighter murdered, referring to this as great fun.
• State Sec: The SS appear more than once, mostly in the form of their intelligence arm, the SD. Later the Milice, who served as this for Vichy France, also appear. Both groups have an infamous (deserved) notoriety as brutal, vicious enforcers of their regimes.
• Stay in the Kitchen: De Kervern dislikes women in France gaining greater status, complaining over them getting voting rights. He admits they did help greatly in the Resistance, but says the time has passed and they should go back into domestic life, not wanting them in politics, sports etc.
• The Stoic: Daniel, Marie and Raymond are all largely composed, showing pretty limited emotion most of the time. All have moments when their resolve breaks. In Daniel's case, it takes being tortured, while Marie's comes only when she faces her death.
• Straight Gay: Louis and Jérôme, who turn out to be a couple. Neither acts or looks differently from the straight men.
• Take That!: Geneviève is told by the US Army Colonel that one of the soldiers who attacked her will be hanged... the one who had not committed rape, because he's Black, which he freely admitted was due to American racism. Antoine is very disgusted by this, saying it's a joke for the US say it represents freedom and democracy while they do such things.
• Tap on the Head: Twice Marie is knocked out by being pistol-whipped, in close succession. In both cases, she's shown as fine afterward.
• Those Wacky Nazis: Müller is the cultured warrior type, an SS officer with the SD who enjoys music, fine wine, beautiful women and often waxes philosophical.
• Time Skip: In Season 7, the last the show had, characters are shown much later, from the 50's into the 2000s.
• Token Religious Teammate: While other characters mention believing in God or otherwise holding religious beliefs, Lucienne is really the only one who's shown to be a believer, praying and confessing her sins as a highly devoted Roman Catholic.
• Torture Always Works: Müller regularly claims this to his victims before beginning, saying it's just a matter of time and technique before people talk. Generally it seems to be the case, but in one case he's thwarted when a Communist who's aware he has a weak heart dies after he'd held out.
• Torture Technician: Müller specializes in torture, it seems, and displays his skill frequently.
• Traumatic Haircut: Hortense gets her head shaved as the punishment for having sex with a German.
• Two-Faced: Kurt looks like this due to burns he suffered during combat on the right half of his body, including his face.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: The Germans call all resistance fighters terrorists. Most are never actually shown to engage in what people would usually call terrorism, and even assassinating Germans is likely sympathetic for many. However, even if their cause is just, resistance fighters can still be quite brutal.
• Villainous Rescue: Müller gets Daniel released from prison at Hortense's request.
• Villainous Valor: The milice, despite being fascist enforcers of the Vichy regime allied with the Nazis, show great courage when they face a firing squad, defiantly singing and shaking their executioners before they're shot.
• Vorpal Pillow:
  • Jules smothers Kurt with a pillow, who had previously asked that he be killed as a mercy. It's unclear if he did this for mercy though or because Kurt slept with his wife.
  • Later it seems like Lucienne will kill Jules this way too. It's subverted however, and he's still living decades later as an old man.
• We ARE Struggling Together: The Communists are at first hostile toward Suzanne given she's a Socialist, whose party they consider traitors. Begrudgingly they do accept her later, then believe she's spying on them and order that she be killed. Marcel, who's tasked with this, helps her fake her death. Later, the Communists make common cause with the Gaullists for a united resistance front, but plan on taking over all other groups and then later France itself through doing so. However, with the Liberation squabbling becomes endemic.
• What Does She See in Him?: Daniel openly asks Müller what Hortense sees in him. Müller dismisses the question.
• What the Hell, Hero?: After Marcel finds out that Daniel more or less kidnapped Tequiro from his birth father, he then denounces his action (which no one before really knew about to condemn, aside from his partner in crime Hortense).
• Wicked Cultured: Müller is very intelligent, smooth, can be quite charming and loves champagne. He's also a ruthless Nazi torturer and mass murderer.
• Would Hit a Girl: The French and German police show no compunctions toward hitting or even torturing anyone because they're women.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Blanchon, the Milice leader, will shoot innocent civilians, but not women. He says it's a matter of principle as a gentleman.
• Would Hurt a Child: In the first episode, a German fighter plane shoots at a group of French school children on a field trip with their teachers, killing and wounding several. However, they may have been mistaken for soldiers and this was accidental, it's never made clear. Later Milice leader Janvier orders his godson Alban to murder a resistance fighter's children. He does, and loathes himself for it.

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