Paris, 1959. As dusk settles over the immigrant quarter, 12-year-old Michel Marin is drawn to the local bistro. From his usual position at the football table, he has a vantage point on a grown-up world. But as the sun sinks and the plastic players spin, Michel's concentration is not on the game, but on the huddle of men gathered in the shadows of a back room. Past the bar, behind a partly drawn curtain, the Incorrigible Optimists Club introduces Michel to a world beyond the boundaries of his childhood experience, a world of history, ideas and politics shaped by their own personal experiences.