Suite Francaise

Content Warning: This guides discusses World War II antisemitism and violence against Jewish people.

Storm in June begins with an air raid in Paris on the hot spring night of June 4. The previous night marked the first bombs falling on Paris, and Parisians are in a state of disbelief and bewilderment. The city is blacked out, both with closed shutters and suppressed electric lights so as not to attract the attention of enemy planes. The air raid clears with daybreak.

The middle-class Catholic Péricands are fairly wealthy and potentially stand to receive any inheritance the elder Monsieur Péricand does not bequeath to the orphanage of the Penitent Children of the 16th Arrondissement. Madame Charlotte Péricand runs the household, managing her five children’s education, her husband’s career as curator of one of the national museums, and the elder Monsieur Péricand’s care. In wartime, she feels that it is her duty to echo the newscasters and keep up morale.

The Péricands consider that they might need to evacuate their home, as they accept that Paris might be invaded and destroyed by the Germans. The second son, Hubert, is a boy scout and has notions that he and his friends could form a volunteer army that would defend France; however, he bursts into tears at the thought that France could lose the war.