Fixing France

A French-Algerian journalist offers unique insight into crisis-ridden France – how it got there and what can be done about it.

The romanticized, revolutionary nation with an enlightened historical mission—Liberty, Equality, Fraternity for all—is failing its own citizens and its admirers around the world.

A makeshift Fifth Republic, born out of 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 contribute to the growing crisis.

In Fixing France, Nabila Ramdani assesses the fault lines in her struggling nation with unflinching clarity and originality. As a French-Algerian born and brought up in a neglected Paris suburb, her compelling perspective is very different from that of the establishment elites.

Ramdani’s critique is stark but offers real hope: the broken French Republic can, and must, be fixed.