Fixing France: How to repair a broken republic

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.

‘A valuable overview of the problems facing France…[The book] constitutes a strong addition to scholarship on the fault lines dividing contemporary France.’ – Australian Institute of International Affairs

‘[A] highly readable…blazing indictment of modern France…Ramdani’s criticism is heartfelt and justified.’ – The Sunday Times

‘Ramdani tackles head-on some taboo subjects.’ – The Times

‘A vigorous jeremiad that makes many sound arguments about the often sclerotic nature of French society and the marginalisation many people of immigrant descent, like her, experience… A persuasive case.’ – The Irish Times

‘Ramdani writes with urgency and verve. …Fixing France is a sharp polemic – necessary, revelatory, mostly fair, always driving to the point.’ – Los Angeles Review of Books

‘Excellent, well-researched, and cogently argued… Nabila Ramdani cuts through the self-congratulatory myths of French politics to deliver a damning picture of France under Macron.’ – Jacobin

‘Fixing France reads a lot like The People’s History of the United States, the national bestseller by historian Howard Zinn that presented the history of the United States from the perspective of the working classes and sidelined sectors of society.’ – The Connexion

‘Nabila Ramdani was born to write this book. She dissects this wonderful, vexing country that was the home of the Enlightenment – but which still needs a lot of enlightening.’ – Jon Sopel, former BBC Paris and Washington correspondent, and co-host of The News Agents

‘A timely and fresh perspective on a country that seems to have it all. Yet its citizens are angry and dissatisfied. Why? Ramdani provides some smart answers in this thought-provoking book.’ – Clive Myrie, BBC presenter and former Paris correspondent

‘Ramdani portrays a France that she knows intimately, highlighting her country’s contradictions with wit. Her book is extremely well-documented, and uncompromising yet hopeful. It provides France with an opportunity for some serious soul-searching.’ – Rokhaya Diallo, columnist, The Guardian