A French-Algerian journalist, born and brought up in a neglected Paris suburb, offers unique insight into crisis-ridden France from a very different perspective to the establishment elites France, the romanticized, revolutionary land with an enlightened historical mission—Liberty, Equality, Fraternity for all—is failing its own citizens and its admirers around the world. How did the country get here, and what can be done about it?
In
Fixing France, Nabila Ramdani assesses the fault lines in her struggling nation with unflinching clarity and originality.
The makeshift Fifth Republic, which emerged from the cataclysmic Algerian War of Independence, has produced extremism. Constitutional reform is urgently needed: an all-powerful monarchical president displays little interest in democracy, while a mainstream far-right party founded by Nazi collaborators threatens to deliver a head of state.
Segregated suburbs, institutionalized rioting, economic injustice, a monolithic education system, the debasement of women, deep-seated racial and religious discrimination, paramilitary policing, terrorism, and a duplicitous foreign policy all fuel the growing crisis.
Ramdani’s critique is stark but provides real hope: the broken French Republic can and must be fixed.
"Once a romanticized beacon of democracy, culture, and the arts, France has slowly slid further and further away from its historic image of liberty, equality and fraternity. The country is on the brink. With a precarious labor force facing dwindling wages, a right wing political surge that has resulted in drastic acts of Islamaphobia and Anti-Seminitism, and a media increasingly led by government cronies, France has entered an unprecedented era of social, political and economic turbulence. So, where is France heading, who runs it, and why does it matter? In Fixing France, French-Algerian journalist Nabila Ramdani gets to the very heart of a declining France racked with division. From the rise of Marine Le Pen to the segregated suburbs to the growing educational divide and wealth disparity, Ramdani offers a compelling and original critique of contemporary France. Deeply reported, the book is filled with interviews with senior public figures, including all presidents of the 21st century as well as with numerous ordinary French people who feel excluded by the powerbrokers and from the establishment institutions that run their lives. Yet, while Ramdani follows France's historical tradition of dissent, she simultaneously acknowledges that there is much to be hopeful about. What emerges is a true portrait of a country undergoing dramatic change and upheaval"--
