Twilight of the Elites

A passionate account of how the gulf between Frances metropolitan elites and its working classes are tearing the country apart Christophe Guilluy, a French geographer, makes the case that France has become an American societyone that is both increasingly multicultural and increasingly unequal. The divide between the global economys winners and losers in todays France has replaced the old leftright split, leaving many on the periphery. As Guilluy shows, there is no unified French economy, and those cut off from the countrys new economic citadels suffer disproportionately on both economic and social fronts. In Guilluys analysis, the lip service paid to the idea of an open society in France is a smoke screen meant to hide the emergence of a closed society, walled off for the benefit of the upper classes. The ruling classes in France are reaching a dangerous stage, he argues; without the stability of a growing economy, the hope for those excluded from growth is extinguished, undermining the legitimacy of a multicultural nation.