MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
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Compelling analysis of Islamophobia's ascendancy in France
Marine Le Pen's Front National at a rally in Paris in May 2012
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
Republic of Islamophobia: The Rise of Respectable Racism in France
Jim Wolfreys
(Hurst, £14.99)
WHEN the government of a country, with the support of much of its populace, bans Muslim women from covering their face in public and prohibits Muslim children from wearing headscarves in schools, it’s hard to ascribe the phenomenon to anything other than Islamophobia.
Thus Jim Wolfreys’s book wastes little time on trying to build a case that widespread anti-Muslim feeling actually exists in France, although he does quickly assemble the evidence. Instead, he concentrates on looking for the reasons behind such a phenomenon.
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