The End

It was like things coming around in a circle - Romain Duris' character saves the stowaway's life and then gives him the freedom to start again by letting him have the glory of the photos. He also did that so he himself could try and start afresh, because he'd realised his past was going to keep catching up with him, he had to let everything go (like the photo of his children burning with the car - the last piece of what he had, gone).

He's going off somewhere to try and find peace - he did look like he'd found some in that last scene as he watched the stowaway get interviewed. Presumably he won't use the name of the guy he murdered in his new life, this time :D

I had a slightly different interpretation about Paul's aims to the previous poster. I felt that the scene in which he saw the photograph of his children burning was the 'turning point', as he realised that the only symbol of his connection with his children was lost, and from that point forwards he intended to return home - either to face consequences or to surreptitiously spy on/take care of his family. For me, that was why he sought passage on the freighter, and once in Italy I felt that he planned to return to Paris.

It's a nicely ambiguous ending, and to be honest at the end of the film I almost had tears in my eyes because, as a father, Paul's seemingly irreparable distance from his children (and the highly symbolic burning of the photograph of them) really struck home for me.

'What does it matter what you say about people?'
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958).