FIXING FRANCE: How to Repair a Broken Republic, less how-to than why-should

FIXING FRANCE: How to Repair a Broken Republic
NABILA RAMDANI
PublicAffairs
$30.00 hardcover, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: 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.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: More a why-should than a how-to. Author Ramdani goes through the laundry list of increasing right-wing populist horrors that the country's indulging its worst self by celebrating. She shares her very low opinion of the pantouflard Macron. She cites her own experiences and journalism, she sources a lot, but not all, her asseverations about the French Fifth Republic in her "Notes" section. A lot of "everybody knows"ism is present; the right-wing's angry voices are referred to as "{like} Presidents, they are almost always white males" and then in the next sentence, she says "{s}tated facts are scant"! Accusing your enemy of your own sin. Marine Le Pen's public schism from her Nazi-collabortating anti-semite father is treated as political theater without linking to or performing substantive analyses demonatrating it as such, for another example. This is probably true but you're writing a book advocating the disestablishment of the Fifth Republic in it sixty-fifth year, when it's one of the cornerstones of the EU and multiple supranational alliances. You need to go the extra mile with such a proposition.

I'm aware of flaws and inconsistencies in a book, in general, I agree with. I'm aware also of the genuine value proposition the book represents. Most US readers are not aware of how very new France's current government is; they have the same illusion of ancient permanence about their own. No structure of government is, or should be, permanent; that illusion is perpetuated by those who despise and fear We-The-People, because the idea of changing governments is threatening to their control of society's attention.

So, in my opinion, read this book to follow the author's poiting finger, and attend to her argument's substance, not sources. These could be more complete. The argument for a better, more just, more inclusive France, however, is in and of itself convincing and deserves close and attentive reading here in the US.