2004 à Paris. Une loi bannit les symboles religieux de l'école publique. Mariam a quatorze ans. depuis un pèlerinage à la Mecque avec sa grand-mère, elle a décidé de porter le voile. Younes, son père, lui ordonne de l'enlever pour aller en classe mais elle résiste. Pendant ces jours fatidiques où elle doit choisir entre être exclue de son collège et garder le voile, elle se rapproche de Karim, un garçon musulman de son âge dont elle est amoureuse.

The year is 2004. France has passed a law banning religious symbols in public schools. Mariam, born in France to Arab parents, recently began to wear the hijab after performing the hajj with her grandmother. At the start of the academic year, she pretends the new law does not exist, as she does not want to acknowledge it and so be forced to make a decision. To complicate matters, Karim, a popular young Arab boy in school, starts paying attention to her and she develops a powerful crush on him. While her fellow veiled classmates argue with teachers about their desire to keep wearing the hijab, and her parents argue about her wearing hers, Mariam dreams of Karim, despite her best friend Sophia’s warning that he is not serious. Things come to a head when the deadline for removing the hijab or facing expulsion falls the same week Mariam sees Karim with another girl.