We had to wait for the result of the European elections, Sunday evening, June 9, and the dissolution of the National Assembly decided by Emmanuel Macron, for books relating to politics to join the bestseller charts. Until this week from June 10 to 16, in fact, only the massacre of October 7, the conflict between Israel and Hamas which followed and the Landings of 1944 had the right to honors in the Top 20. But necessity made law, two works devoted to the National Rally and its voters are included in our list of essays.
The first, The Great Replacement. The hidden side of Jordan Bardella (Studiofact), entered in 6th place, is signed by the journalist and director of investigative documentaries Pierre-Stéphane Fort, the same one who had had trouble with the RN during the broadcast, in January 2024, of his report on Jordan Bardella in Further investigation (France 2), affirming – based on four sources, including three anonymous – that the young president of Marine Le Pen’s party would have used (which he has since denied) from 2015 to 2017 a Twitter account under a pseudonym to spread racist messages, homophobic or to insult journalists. The journalist drew on this same investigation to paint a portrait of the young man in a hurry, “half-Rastignac, half-Bel-Ami”, and “weapon of mass seduction of his camp”.
The second try, Ordinary voters. Investigation into the normalization of the far right (Threshold), placed 12th, is by sociologist and political scientist Félicien Faury, postdoctoral researcher at CESDIP (Center for sociological research on law and penal institutions). As soon as the results were announced (31.37% for the RN, and 5.7% for Reconquête!), the media rushed to the researcher, interviewed by The cross, The world, Humanity, Release, The new observer… In his book, the result of a six-year field investigation (2016-2022) in a territory in the south-east of France, the historic cradle of the extreme right, the sociologist sheds light, with supporting portraits, on how far-right ideas spread on a daily basis. Immigration, economic inequalities, shortage of public services, feeling of insecurity, racism… shape the representation of the world of these “ordinary voters”.
© / The Express
On the fiction side, it’s almost dead calm. We will still point out the entries of the authors of romance and of fantasyMeagan Brandy with Say You Swear (Shingfoo), Rebecca Yarros with the 2nd volume of her series The Empyrean, Iron Flame (Hugo Romans) and Alric & Jennifer Twice with the 4th part of their saga The Treader of Words, The Tears of the Willow (Hachette Romans). Also note, in the Top 30, the arrival of the very recent Franco-American winner of the Inter Book Prize, Phoebe Hadjimarkos Clarke, with Aliene (Editions du Sous-Sol) and the American-British Tracy Chevalier, with The Glass Spinner (Editions de la Table Ronde). The first story combines science fiction and social drama through the meeting of a woman blinded in one eye by a flashball and a sociologist who investigates stories of abductions by extraterrestrials, all in a threatening rural setting. . The second, a historical novel which begins in 1486 on the Venetian island of Murano and ends five centuries later, paints the portrait of Orsola Rosso, a valiant descendant of a dynasty of glass artists who embarked on the work of glass, a profession usually reserved for men. What, between these different novels, to get a change of scenery at low prices.
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