The two French nations

There are, writes Dalrymple, two Frances, living in enmity:

• the ‘good’ France, residing in city centres or good suburbs, that respects authority and obeys the rules.
• the ‘bad’ France — the lower class, the uneducated, the immigrant, the poor, the unskilled, the ones who cannot work from home, the recalcitrant — living in the banlieues who, at the best of times, detest the constraints and rules that emanate from the élite, and try not to obey them on principle.