Book review: who is Charlie? Xenophobia and the new middle class by Emmanuel Todd

In Who is Charlie? Xenophobia and the New Middle Class, Emmanuel Todd presents his controversial reading of the ‘Je Suis Charlie’ protests of January 2015. For Todd, the protests were primarily mobilised by an elitist bloc within French society that has tolerated deep-rooted structures of economic and social inequality. While Andrew McCracken highlights the significant methodological weaknesses that leave Todd’s analysis ultimately flawed and unconvincing, he concurrently points towards some of its more suggestive insights.