The film opens with the words of General De Gaulle: “The crime of the Armistice was surrendering as if France were not an empire” (August 1940). This empire is described in this documentary using Africa as an example (Brazzaville became the symbolic capital of the Free French Forces). The film moves from the sinister episode at Montoire to the arrival of De Gaulle, Leclerc and Pleven in Douala in 1940. A presentation follows of French Equatorial Africa in terms of geography (water, territorial development, public works – bridges, the Congo- Ocean railway, airlines), climate (the different kinds of resources: natural rubber for military purposes, cotton, coffee, palm oil, gold), and from a strategic and human point of view (importance of native manpower, which the filmmakers show at work in “in age old landscapes”). The film also mentions the French colonial administration, which is active in the fight against sleeping sickness, training health assistants, building hospitals, maternity wards, orphanages and schools (that “allow them to free themselves of the strange habits of native women”), and of course the missions that must face “a society dominated by a primitive spirit”. The finale shows marching Senegalese riflemen: “Free France rises from the equatorial forest”.