Beyond the affluent centre of Paris and other French cities, in the deprived ban
lieues, a war is going on. This is the French Intifada, a guerrilla war between
the French state and the former subjects of its Empire, for whom the mantra of '
liberty, equality, fraternity' conceals a bitter history of domination, oppressi
on, and brutality. This war began in the early 1800s, with Napoleon's lust for m
artial adventure, strategic power and imperial preeminence, and led to the armed
colonization of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, and decades of bloody conflict, a
ll in the name of 'civilization'.
Here, against the backdrop of the Arab Spri
ng, Andrew Hussey walks the front lines of this war - from the Gare du Nord in P
aris to the souks of Marrakesh and the mosques of Tangier - to tell the strange
and complex story of the relationship between secular, republican France and the
Muslim world of North Africa. The result is a completely new portrait of an old
nation. Combining a fascinating and compulsively readable mix of history, polit
ics and literature with Hussey's years of personal experience travelling across
the Arab World, The French Intifada reveals the role played by the countries of
the Maghreb in shaping French history, and explores the challenge being mounted
by today's dispossessed heirs to the colonial project: a challenge that is angri
ly and violently staking a claim on France's future.
