Fixing France

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.

Nabila Ramdani is a French-Algerian writer from Paris who works as an academic, journalist and broadcaster, mainly covering France and the Arab and Muslim World. She began her award-winning journalistic career in the BBC Bureau in Paris and has since written extensively for publications ranging from the Guardian and The Sunday Times to the Daily Mail and Washington Post, while broadcasting for outlets including Sky News, Al Jazeera, and CNN. Educated at Paris VII University, Nabila holds an MPhil in British and American History and Literature, and an Agrégation-France's highest teaching qualification-in English. She also has an MPhil in International History, specializing in the Middle East and North Africa, from the London School of Economics (LSE). Nabila first lectured at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in the US, and then taught at Jesus College, Oxford University, in the UK.