‘We are at war’: Continuity and rupture in French anti-terrorist discourse

Abstract

This article analyses the circulation of the word ‘war’ in French anti-terrorist discourse since the 1980s. Although its use was apparent well before the attacks carried out in 2015, it experienced such a rise in frequency that it formed a discursive rupture. Its usage seeks to intensify the intentions traditionally evoked by anti-terrorist discourse by calling attention to amplification in the situation, while also seeking to justify a strategy based on exceptional circumstances.

A Theory on the Involvement of Religion in National Security Policy Formulation and Implementation: The Case of Israel before and after the Religionization of Its Security Environment

“…In the informational instrument, during the 2000s, French leadership propagated the message that, rather than a clash of civilizations between the West and Islam, there was a clash between states and "extremists" who "hijack Islam's humanist tradition and pervert the religion for the goals and causes that the criminals claim to be serving", in the words of the French 2006 white paper (de Villepin 2006, p. 114;Bosco 2014, pp. 42, 72-73;Fragnon 2019;Dück and Lucke 2019, pp. 15-16).…”

News values and human values in mediated terrorism: Photographic representations of the 2015 Beirut and Paris attacks by global news agencies

“…The Global Terrorism Index (2015) rated France as the 36th most impacted nation of terrorism among 142 countries, with 11 small-scale terrorist incidents reported in the year 2014 (IEP, 2015: 10). Paris, in particular, had already been the target of several large-scale bombings in the mid-1990s, which had a significant impact on the social discourse of anti-terrorism within French society (Fragnon, 2019). However, it was not until the Charlie Hebdo incident on 7 January 2015 1 that the French discourse of anti-terrorism was elevated to the level of 'war' against terrorism (Fragnon, 2019).…”

“…Paris, in particular, had already been the target of several large-scale bombings in the mid-1990s, which had a significant impact on the social discourse of anti-terrorism within French society (Fragnon, 2019). However, it was not until the Charlie Hebdo incident on 7 January 2015 1 that the French discourse of anti-terrorism was elevated to the level of 'war' against terrorism (Fragnon, 2019). In continuum with this chronology, the November Paris attacks occurred during a state of affairs in which the national solidarity and security alerts were at their highest levels in the past few decades.…”