The skyline may look like an exquisite stroke of calligraphy but it is more akin to the jagged mark of a seismograph, which testifies to deeper upheavals and turbulence below.
"Even if there is no doubt about the outcome of the run off, and it is already clear that Mr. Chirac will be returned to the Élysée, " said Pierre-Luc Séguillon, an editorialist at the 24-hour news channel LCI, "it is nevertheless also clear that an era of great uncertainty, turbulence, deep political upheaval and institutional change is ahead".
The Servant portrays a British society in the process of deep social upheaval.
While relief efforts have focused primarily on the physical damage wrought by the tsunami, survivors also struggle to overcome the deep shock and upheaval resulting from the catastrophe.
In certain quarters in Egypt, these astonishing numbers have been hailed by those who desperately hope a new capital can symbolise a process of national renewal under President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, after several years of deep social division, political upheaval and economic crisis.
Fiona Weir, Gingerbread's chief executive, said: "Thousands of young children from single-parent families will face deeper poverty, or the upheaval of having to move away from their family networks and communities as a result of this poorly conceived benefit cap".
For things to change in the long-term, we need something even more challenging: the total upheaval of deep-rooted attitudes to class in this country.
The greatest challenge facing women's equality will be the upheaval of deep-rooted perceptions of the role of women in society.
Two cultural developments propelled the rise of the religious right: a backlash against midcentury social upheaval and a deep reservoir of anti-Communism.
Western diplomats respond that whatever tactics the United States uses will be criticized, but note that while anti-Americanism is widespread in Pakistan, it has so far proved not deep enough to bring widespread upheaval.
