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Who is Charlie?: Xenophobia and the New Middle Class 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 31 ratings

In the wake of the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris on 7 January 2015, millions took to the streets to demonstrate their revulsion, expressing a desire to reaffirm the ideals of the French Republic: liberté, égalité, fraternité. But who were the millions of demonstrators who were suddenly united under the single cry of ‘Je suis Charlie’?

In this probing new book, Emmanuel Todd investigates the cartography and sociology of the three to four million who marched in Paris and across France and draws some unsettling conclusions. For while they claimed to support liberal, republican values, the real middle classes who marched on that day of indignant protest also had a quite different programme in mind, one that was far removed from their proclaimed ideal. Their deep values were in fact more reminiscent of the most depressing aspects of France’s national history: conservatism, selfishness, domination and inequality.

By identifying the anthropological, religious, economic and political forces that brought France to the edge of the abyss, Todd reveals the real dangers posed to all western societies when the interests of privileged middle classes work against marginalised and immigrant groups. Should we really continue to mistreat young people, force the children of immigrants to live on the outskirts of our cities, consign the poorer classes to the remoter parts of the country, demonise Islam, and allow the growth of an ever more menacing anti-Semitism? While asking uncomfortable questions and offering no easy solutions, Todd points to the difficult and uncertain path that might lead to an accommodation with Islam rather than a deepening and divisive confrontation.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Perceptive and chilling"
London Review of Books

About the Author

Emmanuel Todd is an historian and sociologist at the National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED), Paris.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B018JUA40S
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Polity; 1st edition (October 2, 2015)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 2, 2015
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3129 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 218 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1509505776
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 31 ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2016
    Great insight into the actual demise of France and the shame of its struggle with the Muslim minority...
  • Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2016
    Amazon Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )
    The day I finished reading this book, the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida was the site of a mass shooting. I had much admired the work that has gone into “Who Is Charlie?” and I have recommended it to my dearest friends because I thought it spoke to all of us around the world who felt solidarity with Paris after the Charlie Hebdo attack last January. Now I am not so sure. The introduction to Todd’s book speaks universally and resonated so strongly with me, that I labored, and I do mean labored, through the rest of the book because it addresses particular issues in France that is pretty unfamiliar turf for me. I do not know enough about the internal politics of France and its neighboring countries to decide if I agree or disagree. However, the discussion is definitely interesting food for thought, and thinking is healthy in these troubled times.

    In light of this weekend’s events, I believe more and more that the overwhelming outpouring of support and solidarity after the Paris attack aligns with the same outpouring after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, and the current show of support to Orlando. Whereas the terrorist attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices represented an extremist’s assault on freedom of speech, this weekend’s attack in Orlando is an assault on another essential freedom – that of assembly. I believe that such expressions of sorrow, outrage, and support are part of the new world order. Decent people with regard for their fellow man are insulted by these violent expressions of ignorance, and speak their decency out loud in the never-ending hope that truth and justice will someday prevail.

    This book takes a scientific approach to understanding these activities, and draws conclusions based on that understanding. History will either support or deny such conclusions down the road. But the fact that this book is so well written and presents such erudite and eloquent with passion and honesty makes it well worth a read that may certainly be a struggle to some. It was to me, but it was worth taking on, and I am glad that I did.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2016
    Amazon Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )
    There is no question that this is a provocative book -- and perhaps deliberately, consciously, one that sets out to offend. But even if you disagree with its ultimate conclusion -- that it is the demise of Catholicism that can be held responsible for a rise in xenophobia in France -- and follow Todd's logic to its illogical extreme (that one should therefore roll back time to some perfect past, which clearly is not what he is proposing, either), there is considerable value to be found here, and the somewhat hysterical reaction to the book's publication in France also needs to be put in context.

    Todd starts off by wondering who was Charlie -- who took to the streets to protest the killings at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo? He finds that it wasn't the poorer sections of the population; it wasn't younger people; it wasn't the provincial working classes; and perhaps a total of 6% of the population. "The unanimity trumpeted so loudly by the media is a fiction," he concludes. The demonstrations were "a moment of collective hysteria." And anyway, he wonders, what kind of society could have brought out as many as four million people on to the streets to show solidarity with a magazine "that specialized in stigmatizing a minority religion, Islam, and designating it as France's number one problem."

    Set aside, for one moment, the fact that the demonstrations actually were in honor of free speech and in memory of people who were killed for that right, Todd does make some very valid points about the way that French society and government have completely and utterly failed to come to grips with the reality of the fact that it has a large population of citizens -- French born -- who also identify as Muslims. They cannot legally wear a hijab to work or school, in most cases, if they wish; studies have found that discrimination against them is roughly on a level that African Americans might face in the USA. In some cases it's actually worse, since there are reported cases of French Muslim citizens with college degrees and starting their first jobs being unable to open a bank account, or find a place to live, simply because of their first or last names. That, to Todd, is part of the problem. He watches a French Muslim public intellectual being harangued on television over the caricatures of Mohammed, which represent blasphemy to an observant Muslim. This individual, married to a non-Muslim, Todd writes, "tried to explain to his inquisitor, courteously and painfully, that blasphemy was difficult for a Muslim, that it was not part of his tradition. That was not enough: to be French meant not that you had the right to blaspheme, but that it was your duty." An exaggeration? Of course. But Todd also is making a point about the almost exaggerated respect for secularism in French society today -- something that Jews also have felt the brunt of, as anti-Semitic attacks have been on the rise.

    That's the context in which Todd has compiled a lengthy series of statistical analyses of the January 2015 "Charlie" demonstrators and concluded from them that those who took to the streets did so less in order to support positive French values, such as liberty, fraternity and equality, but rather out of racism (anti-Muslim sentiment) and as reactionaries. Again, there's an extent to which he overstates his conclusion, and relies far too heavily on "false consciousness" in formulating it, but it's very hard for me to quarrel with the combination of the data and what I see and hear coming from an extended network of friend and former colleagues in Europe (where I grew up and where I have worked and where I still spend a reasonable amount of time.) Casually racist comments of a kind that we wouldn't tolerate in the US (in polite circles) are unnervingly frequent; comments on these are met by "you don't understand 'these people'."

    This is a book to approach with tremendous caution, however. Although I've given it four stars, that only means that I think it should be read as contributing to the ongoing dialog, not as an endorsement of all Todd's views. He has an agenda -- which is absolutely transparent -- and promotes it vigorously. At times, doing so isn't just provocative but actually provides us with valuable, contrarian insights. Do we want to live in an echo chamber? Todd may be an eccentric thinker, but he isn't an erratic one or an undisciplined one, and if you can engage with his arguments, you'll find some concerns that are worth addressing (such as the fact that the French government clearly has NOT done an outstanding job of protecting its citizens from terrorist attacks, or the fact that there is a sizable part of the French population who is xenophobic, and it has been growing steadily since the 1980s) as well as others that you can safely put to one side. But it's worth engaging with the whole, rather than dismissing it out of hand as something that is valueless. The French Prime Minister doesn't get bent out of shape over someone who is a nutcase...
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  • Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2016
    Amazon Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )
    I'm not sure what I expected from Emmanuel Todd's "Who is Charlie?" It is from the Polity line which is always a challenging experience for me. I try not to have expectations for Polity books. Although I connected very easily with the Paris attacks in November 2015, the Charlie Hebdo attack earlier in the year seemed less immediate to me. I am not sure why that is. Maybe that is what made me select this book because I didn't know who Charlie was except that a lot of innocent people died.

    I don't know if I'm disappointed in the answer that is provided by Todd's book. I understand that the book is not just on the crime itself, but what seems an analysis of the social eco-system that this event happened and the aftermath. It was interesting in learning the socio-political structure of France and the effect of immigration. That said, I found myself wincing when the writer used 'zombie' with Catholicism. Maybe I didn't get what he meant but it just seemed denigrating, especially when he seemed so sympathetic to Islam and Muslim assimilation. I don't know. Maybe I got it wrong.

    Anyway, it was an interesting read and I do commend the author for keeping his writing style accessible.

Top reviews from other countries

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  • 本の虫太郎
    5.0 out of 5 stars さすがに名著
    Reviewed in Japan on November 1, 2016
    日本語では,表現が苦労されていることはわかるものの,非常に理解が困難ものがありフランス語の力がないため英語で読むこととした。
    社会科学,人文科学の英知と正確な分析に敬服する。
    しかし,使用されている単語が専門的なものであり理解が難しいために,通常の英語力では読み通すことには苦労するかもしれません。
    もちろん,私も,苦労しました。現在のヨーロッパ,さらには世界の状況を理解するのに必読書の一つだと思います。
  • Anckarström
    4.0 out of 5 stars Konfrontation ist keine Lösung
    Reviewed in Germany on May 25, 2016
    Die Millionen von Menschen, die im Januar 2015 in Frankreich nach dem Motto „Ich bin Charlie“ demonstrierten und hinter der europäischen Führungselite marschierten – wer waren sie? Anhand von anthropologischen Daten zur Familienstruktur und Religionszugehörigkeit in verschiedenen Teilen Frankreichs, zeichnet Emmanuel Todd ein Bild, der für vielen unerwartet kommt; es waren die previlegierten aus der Mittelklasse, die Islamophoben, die mit der mangelnde Gleichheit unserer Tage sich gut arrangiert haben. Es waren die gleichen, die 1992 für Maastricht gestimmt haben.
    Emmanuel Todd hat seit Jahrzehnten vieles geschrieben, alles wissenschaftlich gut fundiert und häufig mit bahnbrechenden Ergebnissen.
    Mit diesem Buch hatte ich aber Anfangs Schwierigkeiten; jongliert er mit Zahlen und deutet er sie so, dass es ihm passt? Ist er nicht etwas überempfindlich gegen vermeintlicher Antisemitismus?
    Das Buch stellt Ansprüche an den Leser. Wer sich aber die Mühe macht, mitzudenken kann sehen, dass Todd wieder Recht hat. Er identifiziert die anthropologischen, religiösen, ökonomischen und politischen Kräfte, die nicht nur Frankreich in Schwierigkeiten gebracht hat. Er zeigt auf die Gefahren, die uns Europäer drohen, wenn die noch wohlhabende Mittelschicht sich gegen den ärmeren und den Einwanderern richtet.
    Selbst war es mir etwas unwohl, als ich die Demonstrationen im Fernsehen sah, als ich all die Leute im Internet sah, die ihre Fotos in den französischen Farben geschmückt hatten und alle „Charlie“ waren. Mir waren die Zeichnungen in Charlie Hebdo zu ähnlich den Zeichnungen in der Stürmer und andere national-sozialistischen Propagandaschriften. Die Hetzkampagne gegen „dem Moslems“ und die Forderungen nach Gleichschaltung war unangenehm. Emmanuel Todd zeigt hier ausführlich, warum diese Einstellung richtig war, und er kann es besser erklären als andere. „Die Juden“ fühlten sich in den 1930er Jahren meistens nicht in erster Linie als „Juden“, sondern als Deutsche, Franzosen oder Engländer. Erst die Nazis haben sie wieder zu „Juden“ gemacht. Der Begriff „die Moslems“ ist genau wie der Begriff „die Juden“ ein Sammelbegriff für eine Gruppe Menschen, die sehr unterschiedlich sind, die man aber auf einen gemeinsamen Nenner rassistisch zusammenfassen kann.
    Todd versucht aufzuzeichnen, wie Europa weg von Konfrontation und hin zur Integration kommen kann, aber er ist nicht optimistisch.
  • Simon Knows Nothing
    5.0 out of 5 stars Important Book on France and on Europe, by an extremely well informed historian and sociologist
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 1, 2016
    I learnt a great deal about contemporary France by reading this book. Although the title suggests that it is about the makeup of the marchers of July 11th and 12th 2015, the book is a much deeper look at the divisions and the social forces operating within France today. Some of the author's theories are audacious in the extreme (zombie Catholicism's effects for instance), and the author lays a fair amount of the blame for France's social issues at the hands of the single currency. However he writes very well, with plenty of anecdotes about his own family, which I really enjoyed. He also I believe predicted the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1976 (on the back of birth rate statistics). It's not just empty theories though. He backs many of his assertion up with regional data maps of France , graphs and charts. I have already bought another of his books on the back of reading "Who is Charlie?".A very important book for anyone who cares about the future of the European project.
  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 29, 2016
  • J. A. Hadley
    4.0 out of 5 stars Serious about the accommodation of cultural difference in secular society.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 16, 2015
    Written in response to the 7 January 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacres, the book is perhaps a polemic made yet more pertinent in light of 13 Nov 2015 Paris attacks that followed its earlier autumn publication. Emmanuel Todd, a French sociologist and historian at the National Institute of Demographic Studies in Paris, provides a compelling internal examination of socio-economic tensions underpinning not only France but secular European society more widely. The role of religion in contemporary European society sits at the heart of the work: "The non-existence of God, a completely reasonable idea, does not solve the question of the ultimate aims of human existence. Atheism succeeds only in defining a meaningless world and a human race without a project." (p.47).

    Todd's critical analysis offers an empirically informed historical explanation and understanding of not only the deep rooted nature and problem of Islamophobia in contemporary Western society but the further potential for radicalisation among a young generation French (and for that matter, European) citizens toward either right-wing extremism or religious fundamentalism. The root cause being presented, in large part, as the free-market orthodoxies of economic policy sustained in the EU over the last 35 years compounded by the ideological legacies of religious institutions within modern secular societies and flawed notions of equality that undermine assimilation programmes: "In conditions of endless unemployment, under the dark skies of a Europe that worships the golden calf, in the absence of any future they can relate to, it is more or less certain that an increasing number will go over to radical Islamism." (p.192). These influences are complex but well handled in the book, with steady analysis of statistical and geographical evidence to support its theoretical underpinning.

    Chapter one provides a solid theoretical base by dealing with a crisis of religion through the historical decline of Catholicism and rise of xenophobia amid a secular society and economy, its atheism and limitations within certain notions of equality. Chapters two and three discuss 'Charlie' as the expression of a largely middle class France moving from an early pro-Europeanism to a more recent neo-republicanism while subtle structures of inequality take hold in Europe. This paves the way to chapters four and five which respectively deal with the steady march of the far right in France and plight of assimilated minorities, particularly French Muslims and North African cultures. It is the young generation in both cases, the book argues here, which are rendered most vulnerable to the negative consequences of Europe's free-market economy and the resulting pull of extremism in either direction as a way out: "One of the characteristics shared by all advanced societies is the economic and social crushing of their young people. Globalization, and free trade first and foremost, encourages this." (p167). The overall body of the book's main chapters provide the reader with a critical look at the contemporary European self. This in turn signals a potential research agenda for academics in this field of social inquiry: "The historians of the future will have the job of tracing the geneology of the new and renewed forms of xenophobia that are gradually invading the European dream at the beginning of the third millennium." (p.110).

    Whilst there is room for academic debate over theoretical notions of 'assimilation', the book belongs on the reading list of anyone concerned with multiculturalism and associated sociological questions. Its concluding chapter debates possible future directions for France and secular Europe as one of conflict with cultural difference or accommodation of it. The author signals continued long-term effort at accommodation as the only fruitful way forward, with conflict destined for failure and decent into darkness. And above all, we must learn not to take our ideologies and grand theories of secular society or religion too seriously. For seriousness, the author reminds us almost as an afterthought on the final pages of the book, is what makes ideas such as racism truly dangerous: "Kindliness is in the long term more effective than confrontation, which always generates hatred and polarization... Accommodation can work where confrontation will only fail... France will perhaps get over this crisis because it is never, thank God, completely serious." (197, 199, 203). This aspect of seriousness is worth further critical thought but perhaps as the subject of separate attention.

    Whatever France's response to the November attacks in Paris now turns out to be, this book's contribution to a reflexive understanding of who Charlie was in 2015 is worth reading in relation to those murderous events as continued expressions of the January massacres that inspired it.

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