Fighting the “Terrible Poison” of Terrorism: Marine Le Pen's Rhetoric of Ethnicism and Islamophobia

Rhetoric & Public Affairs Mar 2024

Fighting the “Terrible Poison” of Terrorism: Marine Le Pen's Rhetoric of Ethnicism and Islamophobia

Lauren N. Seitz

Abstract

Abstract This essay outlines the rhetorical elements and discursive strategies used to perpetuate cultural racism, or ethnicism, in contemporary political discourse. Using Marine Le Pen's Islamophobic discourse as a case study, this essay demonstrates how Le Pen deploys ethno-nationalist rhetoric to highlight the dangers that she believes Muslim terrorists pose to French national identity. She portrays Muslim terrorists as rootless wanderers capable of causing irreparable damage to France, which enables her to craft herself as a protector of the French home using populist reasoning. In doing so, Le Pen's discourse stokes fears of clandestine terrorists hiding among the French Muslim and migrant populace, which constitutes the Muslim terrorist—and by extension, all Muslims—as major security and cultural threats to the nation. Consequently, Le Pen portrays French national identity as incompatible with all forms of Islam.

Journal: Rhetoric & Public Affairs
Published: 2024-03-01
DOI: 10.14321/rhetpublaffa.27.1.0059
Open Access: Closed
Topics: qualitative research race and writing