Read more
The French have always loved to protest, to strike, to take to the streets in rebellion against the state or the status quo. But in the last few years, the level of anger and violence has taken many by surprise and the atmosphere has changed. The voices of hostility are not only from the extreme far-right, but from the ordinary French who feel excluded from the closed circle of wealth and privilege within the prospering cities. In this fascinating new book, Andrew Hussey travels the length of his adopted homeland to uncover the past and present of the culture of the working class in France, a culture invisible to most tourists and ignored by the metropolitan classes. From the industrial north to the southern borders with Italy, Hussey maps the mood of a nation, and reveals the social, political and economic fault lines that may only deepen and spread. Combining vivid travel narrative and sharp cultural analysis, this will be a compulsively readable and important book.
About the author
ANDREW HUSSEY is Director of the Centre for Post-Colonial Studies in the School of Advanced Study, University of London. He is a regular contributor to the Guardian and the New Statesman, and the writer/presenter of several BBC documentaries on French food and art. He is the author of The Game of War: The Life and Death of Guy Debord (2001), and Paris: The Secret History (2006). He was awarded an OBE in the 2011 New Years Honours list for services to cultural relations between the United Kingdom and France. His latest book, The French Intifada, was published by Granta Books in 2014. He lives in Paris.
