In this paper we present Menhir a compiler for generating sequential or parallel code from the Matlab language. The compiler has been designed in the context of using Matlab as a specification language. One of the major features of Menhir is its retargetability to generate parallel and sequential C or Fortran code. We present the compilation process and the target system description for Menhir. Preliminary performances are given and compared with MCC, the MathWorks Matlab compiler.