Big, varied, attractive, troubled and fascinating: That’s France, and also French cinema. The world’s fourth biggest filmmaking nation merits the notable festival the French Film Festival provides. After that great cherrybomb L’Haine (Hate), Le Petit Lieutenant (The Little Lieutenant) provides a sympathetic, hardwired look at the constabulary on Paris’ mean streets. New recruit Antoine (Jalil Lespert) hits Paris full of energy, joining a lively team led by redoubtable Inspector Vandieu (Nathalie Baye). Xavier Beauvois employed method directing, immersing himself in this world, capturing it sharply. There’s a brilliant scene where the cops debate whether incarcerated crims deserve carnal privileges over couscous. Antoine, who has left a comely wife in Normandy, gets consumed in a murder investigation where some roughneck Russians have thrown a Polish drunk in the Seine. The hard-edged, loaded action moves from Burgundy wine country to a Russian orthodox church to a scummy backpackers, with measured, engaging rhythms.

The details of working life are something of a speciality in French cinema; La Raision du Plus Faible (The Right of the Weakest) continues this meritorious tradition. Instantly engaging with a shot of a steelmill closing, our heroes are the economically disadvantaged of the modern economy. Natacha Regnier had some indelible moments in the The Dreamlife of Angels and registers strongly here as a wife grinding in a laundrette. Like the comparable dirty realism of the Dardenne Bros (The Child), Weakest conveys the debilitating effect of poverty. Set in Liege (French Belgium), Weakest’s downtrodden characters maintain some positivity. There are some warm, generous, musical, even humorous scenes worthy of Ken Loach. But inevitably the unemployed men drift towards crime. “Could life be worse in prison?” Weakest is imaginatively filmed, with impressive use of the sky.

For frothier, funnier fare, the splendid Jean Rochefort (The Man on the Train) teams up with Charlotte Rampling in Desaccord Parfait (Twice Upon a Time.) Old masters Claude Chabrol and Alain Resnais appear with L’Ivresse Du Pouvoir (The Comedy of Power) and Coeurs.—Alexander Bisley