The French have always loved to protest, to strike, to take to the streets in rebellion against the state or the status quo. But in the last few years, the level of anger and violence has taken many by surprise and the atmosphere has changed. The voices of hostility are not only from the extreme far-right, but from the ordinary French who feel excluded from the closed circle of wealth and privilege within the prospering cities.

In this fascinating new book, Andrew Hussey travels the length of his adopted homeland to uncover the past and present of the culture of the working class in France, a culture invisible to most tourists and ignored by the metropolitan classes. From the industrial north to the southern borders with Italy, Hussey maps the mood of a nation, and reveals the social, political and economic fault lines that may only deepen and spread. Combining vivid travel narrative and sharp cultural analysis, this will be a compulsively readable and important book.