A dramatization of Émile Zola's greatest novel. Hired in the Montsou mines, Étienne Lantier meets the Maheu family and falls in love with their daughter Catherine. She is courted by Chaval, a brutal worker. When the Compagnie des Mines lowered wages, Étienne, already outraged by this misery, rose up. Dreaming of justice, he pushes for a strike. Weeks go by, the starving strikers struggle, but, victims of violent repression, resign themselves to returning to work

One evening, Etienne, a police officer from the BAC, and Christian, his teammate, witness the assault of a young girl. But the killer manages to escape, seriously injuring Christian. Shortly after, Etienne discovers, on the one hand, that Angèle, the woman who left him seven months earlier, is about to give birth and that his new boss, Alex Le Guen, is none other than the man he spent the night with after a drunken evening.

French adaptations of the stories by Agatha Christie.