François Pignon, an unassuming divorced man with a teenage son who ignores him, lives a quiet and unremarkable life. When he learns he will be fired from his job as an Accountancy in a rubber factory, he contemplates suicide, but his new neighbor Jean-Pierre Belone, a former industrial psychology, dissuades him from jumping from his balcony and suggests a way to keep his position. Belone proposes that Pignon start a rumor he is homosexual by inserting his image in sexually provocative snapshots of a gay couple in a bar and anonymously mailing them to his boss, Mr. Kopel. The factory's primary product is condoms, so the gay community's support is essential, and Kopel will have to keep Pignon on the payroll to avoid charges of anti-homosexual bigotry.