The action takes place in a typical French town in the early sixties, at the end of the Algerian war. In a fit of criminal madness, a married, affluent and respected town-citizen named Gregoire Duval kills a young woman who spurns his advances. As no one witnesses him committing this crime, he chooses to remain silent while the girl's boyfriend, a young Algerian farm worker, is wrongly convicted. In a strange twist of fate, the killer becomes one of the jurors of the trial and suddenly does everything in his power to defend the wrongly accused young man.

Manuel passes 18 months at Buchenwald before his return to Paris. He wonders even before his arrival who will have the patience and passion to listen to his narrative. He chooses silence.