Nature has been very generous to Martin, but life has not. She is beautiful and lovable, but she grows up in miserable family conditions in a poor town. A job as a manicurist is her only chance to leave for the glittering Paris. Daniel, a rose grower, is another promise of happiness. They fall passionately in love, but their dreams follow different paths.

Elsa Triolet (1896-1970), the first woman to be awarded the Goncourt Prize (1944), was the muse and wife of Louis Aragon, a friend of Mayakovsky, Gorky, Pasternak, Breton, Éluard, and an active member of the progressive movements of the early 20th century in France, as well as of the Resistance during World War II.

The Credit Roses is not just the tragic story of a love affair, but a strong critique of the destructive alienation within industrial capitalism.