A dramatisation of the last years of a political leadership and a private life: that of Francois Mitterrand. As the President engages in his final battle with illness, a dedicated young journalist tries to extract from him some universal lessons on politics and history, love and literature and the certainties of life. But the old man hardly has any to give because for him, this is the moment when all time, past, present and future, blends into one; the time when only doubt remains, the time when all men are equal: the moment of the nearness of death.