Product details
- ISBN 9781805266068
- Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 28 May 2026
- Publisher: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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A French-Algerian journalist’s stark critique of her crisis-ridden country—how does France work, how did it get here, and how can it change?
France—the romanticised, revolutionary land of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity for all—is failing. Reform is urgently needed. This book is a powerful indictment of the status quo, and a highly original perspective on the challenges to which the nation must rise.
Nabila Ramdani is not from the establishment elite: she is a marginalised insider, born and raised in a neglected Paris suburb. With unflinching clarity, she probes the fault lines of her struggling country, exposing the Fifth Republic as an archaic system which emerged from Algeria’s cataclysmic War of Independence.
Today, a monarchical President Macron shows little interest in democracy, while a far-right party founded by Nazi collaborators threatens to replace him. Segregation, institutionalised rioting, economic injustice, the debasement of women, a monolithic education system, deep-seated racial and religious discrimination, paramilitary policing, terrorism and extremism, and a duplicitous foreign policy all fuel the growing crisis.
Yet Ramdani offers real hope: the broken French Republic can, and must, be fixed.
Nabila Ramdani is an award-winning French-Algerian journalist and academic from Paris, mainly covering France and the Arab and Muslim World. Since starting her career in the BBC’s Paris Bureau, she has reported for Sky News, Al Jazeera, CNN, The Guardian, the Daily Mail and The Washington Post, among others.
