An authoritative and revelatory portrait of a nation divided - by class, by politics and by the legacy of the past - from the author of The French Intifada.

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.

"The images of modern France that Andrew Hussey draws are varied, but most point to trouble ahead in what is still one of Europe's more equitable large countries. This book is a set of recent stories which only a fool would ignore" - author of Seven Children and Shattered Nation

"Hussey's work gives an intelligent overview and a personal account of the social and political quandaries of France today... Lively, balanced, and compassionate, with an eye for telling detail" - Professor of Modern History at All Souls College, Oxford and author of The Man on Devil’s Island: Alfred Dreyfus and the Affair That Divided France