Who Is Charlie?

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

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.

Preface to the English editionIntroductionCHAPTER ONE: A religious crisisThe terminal crisis in CatholicismReligious decline and the rise of xenophobiaCatholic France and secular France: 1750-1960The two Frances and equalityFrom the One God to the single currencyFrançois Hollande, the Left, and zombie Catholicism2005: a missed opportunity in class struggle?Difficult atheismCHAPTER TWO: CharlieCharlie: middle class and zombie CatholicsNeo-republicanism1992-2015: from pro-Europeanism to neo-republicanismThe neo-republican reality: the 'social state' of the middle classesCharlie is anxiousSecularism versus the LeftCatholicism, Islamophobia and anti-SemitismCHAPTER THREE: When equality failsThe difficulties of secular, egalitarian FranceThe anthropology of a capitalism in crisisThe Europe of inequalityFrance, the Germans and the ArabsGermany and circumcisionThe great pro-European happening of 11 January 2015Russia: an exceptional caseThe mystery of ParisThe memory of placesThe four stages of the crisisCHAPTER IV: The French of the Far RightThe slow march of the National Front towards the centre ground in FranceA perversion of universalismRepublican anti-SemitismLe Pen, Sarkozy and equalityThe Socialist Party and inequality: the concept of objective xenophobiaMélenchon and inequalityThe insignificance of human beings and the violence of ideologiesCHAPTER FIVE: The French MuslimsThe disintegration of North African culturesMixed marriages: Jews and MuslimsIdeologues and exogamyThe crushing of young people and the jihad factoryScottish fundamentalismMoving beyond the fear of religionIslam and equalityThe inequality of the sexesThe anti-Semitism of the suburbsConclusionThe real republican pastThe neo-republican presentFuture 1: ConfrontationFuture 2: the return to the Republic: an accommodation with IslamA foreseeable deteriorationThe secret weapon of the republican revival