The central thesis of the book could be summed up as "France like all identities EXCEPT hers." Hatred of oneself can not assimilate too many foreign people who are instead reinforced in their desire to pursue other values away from secularism or feminism.
The book contains so brilliantly a number of issues on immigration and Islam he stands on the television sets. Finkielkraut has the consistency and continuity of ideas. The identity crisis caused by massive immigration, the refusal to assimilate newcomers, the clash of values, but also the end of the culture. It is thought to other more controversial books like "The Great replacement" Renaud Camus.
There are basically a great nostalgia in this book. Perhaps that of a man who no longer recognizes the country where he lives. The strange feeling of being a stranger in the streets of his own country. A bad dream. Some speak of an embittered old man regretting the teachers of the Third Republic, the Paris of Doisneau, a France who died. I do not think. Alain Finkielkraut feels free enough to tell us the truth and we share their concerns. The real question is whether this new France is more peaceful, more prosperous, more reassuring. We are obliged to note with Alain Finkielkraut that if we changed not for the better.
Finally, it appears a bit sad that reading. The France appears deeply sick nation doubting itself, its national project, its future. An unstructured juxtaposition of ethnic groups competing for state subsidies of the feeder. Lebanon to a European identity decomposed. Walking through the streets, taking the subway, it is rather agree "It was better before" but we say as Lenin What to do?
Thereupon nobody seems to have an answer. We have yet to hear of Trenet ...
Douce France, dear country of my childhood ...