Emilie, one of the Human Resources Managers at the Esen multinational, has recently been chosen by her superior Stéphane Froncart for her elegant ruthlessness. She indeed has the ability to find the words which persuade employees or executives judged redundant to resign, even if it takes a long time before they give in. She performs her task without moral compunction until the day when one of the employees targeted, Didier Dalmat, kills himself by jumping out of the window of his office. Not only is she deeply upset by this tragedy but she soon realizes that the firm's top brass want to have her take all the blame.
In the early 1920s, Georges Laffont, traumatized by the horrific trench warfar, decides to leave his life behind and travel to West Africa into the vast territories of Upper Volta in the company of Diofo, artist and also survivor of the Great War. From village to village, Georges uses Diofo's talents as a griot to recruit the villagers as labour for plantations in Ghana. But this adventure leads him to a dead-end, and he comes back to Nantes where his brother Marcel, a war invalid, lives with their mother's. After the war in Europe, life went on without him. Georges will desperately try to find his place, with the help of Helene, a sign language teacher with whom he will have a tumultuous relationship, and his family, that he selfishly left behind. He will finally attempt to heal their wounds.
An eight-year-old girl hopes that her parents will get back together. She and her brothers go stay with their father in Italy, where they provoke, neglect, delight and love each other.
An occupational nurse attempts to blow the whistle on toxic waste leaking from a chemical plant.