Fixing France w/ Nabila Ramdani

Join journalist and author Nabila Ramdani for a discussion about the chaos in France.

France is cracking at the seams. Growing socio-political inequality, constant threats from far-right movements, and a lack of social and economic mobility characterize the country. The instability in French society leads to major popular movements protesting against the authorities and making headlines worldwide.

This is the backdrop for Nabila Ramdani’s latest book, Fixing France: How to repair a Broken Republic, where she provides both diagnosis and prescription for France. Ramdani is an author and award-winning journalist. With her French-Algerian background and upbringing in a neglected suburb of Paris, she views French society from a minority perspective.

Associate Professor in History and head of the history section at the Department of Cultural Studies and Languages at UiS, David-Alexandre Wagner, has devoted a significant portion of his academic career to French history and society. He will join the panel.

The conversation will be moderated by Jonas Fossli Gjersø, Pssociate professor in History at the Faculty of Arts and Education UiS.

The event is free of charge and open for anyone interested, no sign up needed.

Breakfast will be served.

About the author

Nabila Ramdani is a French author of Algerian descent who works as a journalist, academic and broadcaster. Nabila began her award-winning journalistic career in the BBC Paris Bureau. She has since broadcast for outlets including Sky News, Al Jazeera and CNN, and has written extensively for The Guardian, The Daily Mail, The Washington Post and others. Educated at Paris VII University and the London School of Economics (LSE), Nabila has taught at the University of Oxford and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

About the book

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.