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ABSTRACT
This article aims to question the discourse on “the war on terror” developed by the French President in the wake of the two terrorist attacks that occurred in France in 2015. Drawing from critical discourse analysis, it explores the discursive legitimation strategies deployed by President Hollande to legitimate France’s securitarian response to the two attacks. It reveals how the defence of human rights served as an overall justificatory framework, through rationalisation, appeals to authority, and moralisation. It argues that Hollande implemented a discursive manipulation of reality to shield his actions from criticisms of illiberalism, all the while reframing the notion of human rights, undermining it and paving the way for an authoritarian-driven executive.
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Ariane Bogain
Ariane Bogain has been a senior lecturer in French at Northumbria since 1997 and a senior lecturer in French and Politics at Northumbria University since October 2015. Her research interests are French politics, discourse analysis, and identity, as well as France and the European Union.