A Return to Paris in the Wake of Attacks

A Return to Paris in the Wake of Attacks

A Bilingual Conversation with Géraldine Smith

How do Parisians living in neighborhoods hit hard by the 2015 attacks confront the state of emergency in France today? Journalist Géraldine Smith returned to Belleville where she had lived for years to investigate how her neighborhood has been radicalized politically. Why did a part of the city long known for its diverse, immigrant communities became a place of extreme violence? Her book, Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, takes us to ground zero of the social crisis in France today, and gives us direct contact with the residents: shopowners, teenagers, school-children. Part report, part family chronicle, Smith grapples with the limits of the French model of social integration, as well as with her own disillusions. Written after Charlie Hebdo and November 13, and published just before this summer’s attacks, Smith’s book offers an intrepid, personal look at what is happening to French public life, and its far-reaching consequences. Join us for a bilingual discussion with Géraldine Smith around her book to mark the rentrée.

Co-sponsored by the Center for French and Francophone Studies and the Forum for Scholars and Publics.

–

Read an interview with the author in Le Figaro, April 29, 2016: « Entre bobos et barbus, ma rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud »