Professor Andrew Hussey OBE is Dean of the University of London Institute in Paris and Director of the Centre for Post-Colonial Studies at the University of London's School of Advanced Study. Born in Liverpool, educated at the University of Manchester and Jean Moulin University Lyon 3, he is the author of The French Intifada (Faber, 2014), Paris: The Secret History (Penguin, 2006), The Game of War: The Life and Death of Guy Debord (Jonathan Cape, 2001), and Fractured France. He was awarded an OBE for services to cultural relations between the United Kingdom and France. He writes for the Observer, the Guardian, and the New Statesman. His forthcoming book, The White In-Between Sea, explores the real life of the South of France from Corsica to the Spanish border.

In this conversation, Andrew and I think out loud about:

Why France is fracturing into fragments that do not speak to each other
The three Frances: the citadels, the banlieues, and the forgotten white working-class periphery
How French prisons became the engine room of radicalisation
The difference between Maliki Islam and Wahhabi puritanism and why it matters
Why the French Republic's promise to make everyone a Frenchman is being tested to destruction
The RN rallies: Hussey spent time with the supporters and found not fascists but ordinary people
Whether the progressive left's grievance politics has made integration permanently impossible
The Charlie Hebdo demonstration and the moment Hussey converted to French Republicanism
Naboukh la France: what the ancient curse really means and why it matters
What all of this tells Britain about what is coming

Find Professor Hussey's work:

The French Intifada: The Long War Between France and Its Arabs - https://amzn.to/4vOVW84
Fractured France: https://amzn.to/4aG8g2j

Related episodes:

#077 Driss Ghali — How France Was Colonised: https://youtu.be/NycF1IiVcnQ?si=DbynKwta-eU671iQ
#106 Driss Ghali — France's Identity Crisis: Violence, Islamism & The Risk Of Social Fracture: https://youtu.be/Y2hS_7WkkDA?si=AWgwO8VbKnV0U40w
#102 David Betz — What Britain Will Look And Feel Like When Things Get Nasty: https://youtu.be/gUtltMklkcM?si=bObsQUD8C1-77RLa

Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam.

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