Lakhdar is an Algerian immigrant to Paris in the late 1950s who, like many others, is forced to live in squalid conditions while working as a laborer. He misses his family so much that her brings them to join him, and his wife Nora is horrified by the life she has come to. Without Lakhdar's knowledge, she becomes a political activist, fighting for better conditions and against the pervasive racism that Algerians are facing from their colonisers.