Professor Louis Delage is a kidney transplant specialist. He is so good in his field that his peers nickname him the "great man". But one day, one of his patients die during surgery and Delage starts doubting. Is he actually such a great man? To fight desperation he decides to take in the deceased child while devoting more time to Florence, his hitherto neglected wife.

Recently released from reform school, Élisa works at Madame Irma's before moving to Paris, where her success is growing. On a trip to the provinces, she meets Bernard, a blind man. They soon fall in love, but Élisa hides her activities from him. When he finds out, he hits her. The situation quickly degenerates.

The Secret Service abducts a "rocket scientist" to better protect him against gangsters acting for Chinese agents.

Ricardo will try his luck in the capital after winning an amateur singing contest. He has many adventures. Kidnapped by gangsters, he is only freed by the intervention of his fiancée. Finally, the director of the "Folies Parisiennes" presents him with a contract.

François Merlin, nicknamed "The Jackal", returns to France after many years in America. He meets up with his sister Mishka, who makes her living from an antiques business. François has a highly developed seduction technique, and his victims unsuspectingly carry out the foreign missions he sends them on, from which they never return. Ranko, the Parisian kingpin of this kind of business, can't bear to see himself competing, and a fight to the death begins between the two crooks.

On the outskirts of Parisian council housing estates lies a vast wasteland that still retains its mysteries in this day and age, and serves as a refuge for people who, in their spare time, escape or are often ejected from their overcrowded dwellings. They form small, rather harmless bands, share their first secrets, build up their "treasures" and submit to strict rituals. The sanctity of their rebellions is underscored by initiation through blindfolded jumping and a blood test. An impossible love story is born between two members of the same clan, Dan, a beautiful, tomboyish girl, and Lucky, a sweet but feisty boy.