Georges Gauthier, the young vicar of a small village in the North of France, experiencing the emptiness of his ministry, decides the follow the local youngsters, who almost all go to town to find work there. To go on being with the vital forces of his village, he decides to take a job of a steelworker. Georges settles down in a suburb, sharing an apartment with a priest-worker, older than him. What he hopes is to give a new meaning to his vocation by living the same life as the workers of a steel plant...