Nine-year-old Messaoud is kid from Aubervilliers, a Parisian suburb. Because his mother is ill, his father is obliged leave him in a foster family’s care.
It is 1960, and events in Algeria are hitting French headlines. Gisèle, Messaoud’s foster mother, decides to hide his true identity from the inhabitants of the cloistered village in Berry where she lives. But, they’re not the only ones she wants to keep in the dark; most important of all is her husband, Georges, a former soldier. He mustn’t find out.
Messaoud hence becomes Michel, or more familiarly Michou. And it’s with this affectionate nickname given to him by Georges and Gisèle that he discovers rural France.
But Gisèle’s lie, soon exposed, endangers this budding relationship.