A working-class woman in Paris struggles to build a modest household and care for her children, but recurring poverty, unreliable partners, and the spread of alcohol use in her milieu steadily undermine her efforts. The narrative follows daily labor, domestic detail, and the rhythms of neighborhood life while chronicling the slow erosion of hope through debt, social pressure, and habit. Episodes shift from determined attempts at independence to mounting hardship and degradation, presenting a naturalistic portrait of how environment and circumstance shape personal decline.