France On the Brink: A Great Civilization Faces a New Century [Paperback]

Jonathan Fenby (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Images of France frequently include smartly dressed Parisians; sidewalk cafés serving strong coffee and fresh pastries to elegantly clad, chain-smoking students; the rolling hills of Provence draped in lavender; and wizened farmers in berets selling freshly grown vegetables, cheese, and homemade bread at the local market. Or at least they used to. In France on the Brink, Jonathan Fenby depicts France as a modern nation far removed from the stereotypes of its past.

Fenby's introductory chapter presents a catalogue of France's virtues and contributions to culture over the centuries. He devotes the remainder of the book to debunking the French myth, examining what he perceives as its collision course with the realities of the 21st century. The 13 self-contained chapters analyze particular elements of French existence and illustrate how it arrived at its present stage of near collapse. Having spent 30 years either living in France or observing it as a journalist, Fenby commands a firm grasp of French life, politics, regional differences, and national mood. This expertise is illustrated by his breadth of analysis--of everything from baguettes to the National Front, from Mitterand to Bardot, from economics to agriculture.

Despite the pessimism implied by Fenby's title, he concludes his study on an optimistic note: He views the cohabitation between the Gaullist President Jacques Chirac and the socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin as a unique opportunity to lead a fresh revolution, one that embraces the modern world while preserving the best of the past. --Bertina Loeffler Sedlack --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

There are more facts and stories in Fenby's primer on what ails France than there are bubbles in a magnum of champagne. Fenby, a British journalist who reported from France for 30 years, methodically and relentlessly undermines France's notion of itself. Most of the critiques are not novel (we know that not nearly as many French people belonged to the Resistance as claim they did), but they have never been collected in one place with such remarkable detail and insight. Fenby's most biting criticism is reserved for the rampant corruption in former president Mitterrand's socialist regime, which publicly eschewed the lure of money while privately putting cash in the pockets of its loyal followers. Fenby is especially trenchant when writing about France's blindness to the dark side of its soul that permits the racist politician Jean-Marie Le Pen to consistently garner between 10% and 20% of the vote in regional elections. Even Fenby's guardedly optimistic conclusion reads like forced cheer: that the "cohabitation"Athe term used by the French to describe a regime in which the prime minister and the president belong to different partiesAof France's current government could force France's warring factions to cooperate in the salvation of their country. Fenby's fear is that FranceAin its nostalgia for its cultural glory, in its obsolete insistence on heavy-handed government regulation, in its Gaullist exceptionalismAis ill-prepared to take its place in a unified Europe. Observant and knowledgeable, Fenby tops off his sober tour de France by revealing that, today, more fois gras is made in Eastern Europe than in the Dordogne region that made it famous. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 454 pages
• Publisher: Arcade Publishing; Reprint edition (July 14, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559705248
• ISBN-13: 978-1559705240
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,431,628 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Worth reading, but gets tied up in a knot or two, October 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: France On the Brink (Hardcover)

Fenby clearly loves France (don't we all?) and appreciates the way it combines the wonderful with the maddening, the rational with the irrational, the generous with the selfish. Whether he or the publishers are right to suggest that France is "on the brink" of some serious crisis is, however, another matter. Living in Germany and traveling frequently to France, I get the impression France is increasingly in better shape than its neighbor. Many French have a problem with globalization (Americanization?), but in lots of ways the country is much more modern and sprightly than its European neighbors. So the book rather overstates its central argument. Its strongest points are its detailed accounts of the political, financial and business scandals of the Mitterrand years - quite staggering, when you come to think of them. The book's weakness is that it drifts too much into a blow-by-blow account of recent high politics in Paris, most of which won't be of any lasting concern even to the French themselves. Earlier reviewers who accuse Fenby of having anti-this and anti-that axes to grind are being unfair - overall, he gets the balance right.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A perceptive and extraordinary book, September 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: France On the Brink (Hardcover)

As an American who speaks French and who has friends all around that wonderful country, I found this book to be perceptive and important. While it is true that one can easily catalog problems in any country, I think that the importance of France on the world stage demanded that this book be written.

Critical to Fenby's thinking is his idea that the leadership in France is more and more inbred and separated from the people. The system allows for immense concentrations of power without effective checks and balances. The resulting lack of "tranparence" in fiscal and political matters should really be quite appalling to the French population.

Unlike the previous reviewer, I find a sense of malaise in many of my friends and acquaintances there and a special sense of unhappiness among the unemployed and underemployed, especially among the young.

I do see France as being "on the brink" in the sense that it has fundamental decisions to make about how it will govern itself (increasing accountability versus perpetuation of "une classe politique"), how it will manage its economic system (creation of real jobs versus quaint solutions such as the 35 hour work week), and how it will truly integrate the large number of people who are on the outside looking in.

I would recommend this book to people who are interested in some of the problems and promises of contemporary France.

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book on contemporary France, February 15, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: France On the Brink (Hardcover)

Jonathan Fenby's "France on the Brink" is the best overview in English of modern-day France, surpassing even Richard Bernstein's "Fragile Glory" (1990), which also is excellent. As a confirmed Francophile, I found that the book skimps a little on some of the qualities that make the country a great place to visit -- such as its food and wine, its efficient public transportation, its superb museums and historic preservation, the warmth of its people (outside Paris at least!), and the beauty and sheer diversity of its landscapes. On the other hand, the book provides a wealth of detail on some of the country's major ills, above all its increasing xenophobia, uncompetitive industries and corrupt, shoddy politics.

It is in the political arena that Fenby is really in his element, and he has hardly a kind word for any of the men and women who have run France since de Gaulle, most of whom he seems to have met face-to-face as a reporter. In Fenby's portrait, payoffs, favoritism, cronyism, sexual intrigue and even violence seem to be business as usual among France's political class, most of whom seem to be interested more in status and luxurious living than in making the country a better place. Fenby's key point is that it is the politicians rather than their usual scapegoats -- immigrants, foreign influences, or the uniting of Europe -- who deserve most of the blame for pushing the country to "the brink"; yet Fenby is hopeful that France will survive and continue to be both a cultural beacon and a significant player in world affairs.