At the beginning of the 60's, thousands of Portuguese turned up in France through the underground. They were fleeing misery, war and repression. Left to unscrupulous smugglers, they had to cross the Iberian Peninsula tracked by the Portuguese and Spanish police. For many, the voyage towards France turned into a disaster. As a child in a shantytown, the author remembers having heard about these terrible odysseys. Thirty years later, he goes in search of the stories of his childhood and seeks to understand what sparked this unprecedented emigration.