Interpreting the Republic focuses on contemporary French literary and cinematic works (1986-2003) that reflect on what it means to belong to a nation such as France by giving voice to those who find themselves marginalized by French society. While citizenship and belonging can be, and indeed are, interpreted differently depending on the socio-cultural and political context, it is the foundational universalist republican principle of egalitarianism that has remained the sacred cow of French society. One of the major claims of this study is that the rigidity of French national discourse that...