Love inspires a rootless young man to get involved in the battle for freedom in Algiers.

During the Algerian crisis of 1958, Bruno Forestier, a deserter from the French Army, works as a photographer with a news agency in Geneva. Although two of his friends, Jacques and Paul, are right-wing terrorists plotting against the Algerian rebels, Bruno himself is without political ideals; he is concerned only with personal freedom. The terrorists suspect him of being a double agent and attempt to use his position as a deserter to blackmail him into assassinating a Swiss radio commentator who has been broadcasting on behalf of the Algerian rebels. Determined to follow his personal convictions, Bruno makes plans to escape to Brazil with Véronica Dreyer, a young woman with whom he has fallen in love. But he is captured by Algerians who use torture in an attempt to make him talk about his friends' activities. Bruno, however, stubbornly refuses to submit and eventually escapes by hurling himself out a window without knowing how far above street level he is being held. Desperate to get out of the country, he now consents to kill the news commentator in exchange for passports for himself and Véronica. Once the murder has finally been committed after several attempts, he discovers that he has been betrayed: his friends became suspicious of Véronica's Algerian sympathies and tortured her to death in a futile attempt to gain information about the Algerians. Bruno, left alone, reflects, "Only one thing remained, to learn not to be bitter. But I was happy, for I had a lot of time in front of me."