"Les classes populaires ont changé"

Serge Guérin and Christophe Guilluy argue that social differentiation in France has assumed a new "spatial" configuration, with a sharp division between "cosmopolitan" major cities and smaller towns, exurban areas, rural areas, etc. They believe that this requires a specific response from the state in the form of a reconfiguration of social services. That may be, but I think the larger issue is to try to figure out why the costs of globalization and Europeanization are so unevenly distributed and then to remedy this economic "mal-santé." If that is done, addressing the social "mal-santé" they describe would be both easier and less costly.