Who are we really, we who displayed such determination in the refusal of blind violence and our faith in the Republic on January 11?

The cartography and sociology of the three to four million Parisian and provincial walkers hold many surprises. Because if Charlie claims liberal and republican values, the real middle classes who marched on that day of indignation also had in mind a completely different program, far removed from the proclaimed ideal. Their core values rather evoked the sad moments of our national history: conservatism, selfishness, domination, inequality.

Should France really continue to mistreat its youth, reject the children of immigrants on the outskirts of its cities, relegate its working classes to the depths of its departments, demonize Islam, nurture an increasingly threatening anti-Semitism?

Identifying the anthropological, religious, economic and political forces that have brought us to the edge of the abyss, indicating the difficult, uncertain, but possible paths to a return to the true Republic, such is the ambition that drives this book.

Emmanuel Todd is a historian and anthropologist. He has notably published Le Destin des immigrés (Seuil, 1994 and "Points Essais", 1997), Le Rendez-vous des civilizations (Seuil/Republic of ideas, 2007, with Y. Courbage), After democracy (Gallimard, 2008) and The French Mystery (Seuil/Republic of Ideas, 2013, with H. Le Bras).