Zouina arrives from her home in Algeria with her three children. She has come to join Ahmed, her husband who has been working in France for the last 10 years and whom she has hardly seen in all that time. Aicha, Ahmed's mother, also comes with them.
Between the aggressive attitudes of the neighbours her mother-in-law's constant rebukes and the guarded silence of her husband, Zouina tries to get used to daily life in exile. The transistor radio is her only opening on the world and the women of this new country. In northern France, nothing binds her to Algeria anymore.
One day, by chance, she learns that another Algerian family lives somewhere in the same village. So Zouina decides to find them, at any cost. Even if going out alone, in an unknown place, is "haram", forbidden...