Jeremy Clarke Jeremy Clarke

The downfall of the French middle class

The Corsican taxi driver painted a thrilling picture of impending social revolution

[Xinhua / Alamy Stock Photo] 
issue 09 October 2021

The chesty Corsican taxi driver was giving me his earnest appraisal of the way things were headed in France politically. On the right we were passing the battlefield of Aquae Sextiae where the Roman general Gaius Marius, commanding 37,000 legionaries, massacred a 100,000-strong Teutonic horde thought to be headed for Italy after laying waste to northern Spain.

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