27-year-old Tunisian Jallel is in a police station in the centre of Paris, where he has arrived as a clandestine immigrant. Using a false passport, he begins his adventure as a vagabond. He has no illusions and not so many hopes either. He tries to survive by selling fruit in the underground tunnel of the Metro and he could solve his problem by marrying unmarried mother Nassera, but the deal falls through at the last moment... Struck down by depression, he ends up in an emergency ward for mental cases. Then, just as his ordeals appear to be giving this 21st century Candide some respite, offering him at last some true peace and friendship, destiny brings Jallel up against the hard reality of what he has been able to escape so far: the law.