ver the last five years, rising Islamophobia in France has corresponded with an increase in hate crimes targeting Muslim communities. Much of this rhetoric has been mainstreamed by French far-right leader Marine Le Pen. Researchers at DisinfoLab, a student-led research lab at the College of William & Mary, found that Le Pen’s Islamophobic tweets increased in intensity between her 2017 and 2022 presidential campaigns, in what was likely a bid to cash in on nativism for political support.
Discriminatory political commentary makes political violence and hate crimes much more likely. Le Pen’s actions exemplify this trend, similar to other far-right leaders like former U.S. president Donald Trump, whose xenophobic comments overlapped with mounting anti-Muslim and anti-Latino hate crimes, or Polish president Andrzej Duda, who campaigned against the LGBTQ+ rights amid growing violence against this community.
One of Le Pen’s biggest political talking points in the 2017 and 2022 elections was Muslim immigration from Syria and surrounding countries. In 2017, Le Pen flatly opposed Islam in France, claiming that the ideology was not in line with French secular governing. “During my trips abroad, I will represent France. And France, she does not veil herself!” Le Pen wrote on April 10th. Just one week later, she penned a similar sentiment: “I am the candidate of a firm secularism that rejects the demands of Islamist fundamentalism."
In 2017, Le Pen lost the general election, receiving only 33% of the vote. But in 2022, Le Pen dose to receive 41% of the vote, corresponding with her heightened advocacy of anti-Muslim nationalism. Compared to her 2017 campaign, the frequency of Le Pen’s inflammatory tweets in 2022 remained steady. However, the severity of her rhetoric increased, with more posts containing keywords denouncing the Islamic faith and connecting Muslims to criminals and violence.
By 2022, Le Pen’s tweets invoked a call to action: Islamic ideals are not in line with French values. To an audience of 2.8 million Twitter followers, Le Pen wrote on April 15, “In France, all women must be able to live freely. I want to fight against totalitarian Islamist ideology, which attacks secularism, equality between men and women, the freedom to choose or leave a religion.” Later in May, she continued to reject the presence of Islam in France: “The #burkini is the continuation of religious demands that will not cease and which are carried by radical Islam. We have to put a stop to this!”
Although Le Pen did not win the presidency, her improvement in the polls from 2017 to 2022 illustrates the mainstreaming of far-right beliefs in French politics. Her tweets mirrored voters’ policy preferences, as rhetoric espoused by authority is more readily accepted. Her increased credibility lent her success at the polls.
Although Le Pen is a driving force in contemporary anti-Islam politics, oppression towards Muslim communities is nothing new for France. Legal precedent to regulate religion in France dates back to 1905 with the creation of a principle called laïcité, which sought to promote a more secular France and protect the public from outward impositions of religion. However, this principle has often been weaponized. In practice, politicians have used laïcité to disproportionately limit the ability of Muslims to practice their religion to its fullest extent.
For example, the French government has regulated settings in which women can wear hijabs, interpreting it as a symbol of gender oppression rather than of religion. In 2010, France introduced a bill regulating full face coverings, such as the burka and the niqab.
After decades of colonization and the erasure of culture, Islamophobia reached a watershed moment in 2015 when two Muslim brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi, killed 12 French workers at satirical newspaper outlet Charlie Hebdo in the name of radical Islam. This attack sparked a stream of protests and social media outcries, producing lasting impacts in the form of increased Islamophobic hate crimes and setting the stage for Le Pen’s rhetoric to take hold.
This attack also gave way to further laїque legislation in 2021, when policymakers moved to amend the original law regulating the hijab, making it illegal for minors to wear. Moreover, the attack corresponded with the increased political influence of the National Rally party—France’s far-right political party—between 2017 and 2022.
As immigration from Muslim majority countries to France increases, and far-right rhetoric continues to push xenophobia and Islamophobia, hate crimes and internal divisions are sure to follow suit, endangering the Muslim community.
Editors’ Note: Datasets from DisinfoLab’s research on this topic can be found here.
DisinfoLab would like to thank Willem Morris for his tremendous support in data collection for this project.
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Le Multiculturalisme Faux: The Reality of Being Muslim in France
Paris, France. Photo by Khamkéo Vilaysing via Unsplash.
January 12, 2023
Increasing Islamophobia in France can be seen in the rhetoric of far-right leader Marine Le Pen. DisinfoLab found that Le Pen’s Islamophobic tweets increased in intensity between her 2017 and 2022 presidential campaigns, in what was likely a bid to cash in on nativism for political support.
O
ver the last five years, rising Islamophobia in France has corresponded with an increase in hate crimes targeting Muslim communities. Much of this rhetoric has been mainstreamed by French far-right leader Marine Le Pen. Researchers at DisinfoLab, a student-led research lab at the College of William & Mary, found that Le Pen’s Islamophobic tweets increased in intensity between her 2017 and 2022 presidential campaigns, in what was likely a bid to cash in on nativism for political support.
Discriminatory political commentary makes political violence and hate crimes much more likely. Le Pen’s actions exemplify this trend, similar to other far-right leaders like former U.S. president Donald Trump, whose xenophobic comments overlapped with mounting anti-Muslim and anti-Latino hate crimes, or Polish president Andrzej Duda, who campaigned against the LGBTQ+ rights amid growing violence against this community.
One of Le Pen’s biggest political talking points in the 2017 and 2022 elections was Muslim immigration from Syria and surrounding countries. In 2017, Le Pen flatly opposed Islam in France, claiming that the ideology was not in line with French secular governing. “During my trips abroad, I will represent France. And France, she does not veil herself!” Le Pen wrote on April 10th. Just one week later, she penned a similar sentiment: “I am the candidate of a firm secularism that rejects the demands of Islamist fundamentalism."
In 2017, Le Pen lost the general election, receiving only 33% of the vote. But in 2022, Le Pen dose to receive 41% of the vote, corresponding with her heightened advocacy of anti-Muslim nationalism. Compared to her 2017 campaign, the frequency of Le Pen’s inflammatory tweets in 2022 remained steady. However, the severity of her rhetoric increased, with more posts containing keywords denouncing the Islamic faith and connecting Muslims to criminals and violence.
By 2022, Le Pen’s tweets invoked a call to action: Islamic ideals are not in line with French values. To an audience of 2.8 million Twitter followers, Le Pen wrote on April 15, “In France, all women must be able to live freely. I want to fight against totalitarian Islamist ideology, which attacks secularism, equality between men and women, the freedom to choose or leave a religion.” Later in May, she continued to reject the presence of Islam in France: “The #burkini is the continuation of religious demands that will not cease and which are carried by radical Islam. We have to put a stop to this!”
Although Le Pen did not win the presidency, her improvement in the polls from 2017 to 2022 illustrates the mainstreaming of far-right beliefs in French politics. Her tweets mirrored voters’ policy preferences, as rhetoric espoused by authority is more readily accepted. Her increased credibility lent her success at the polls.
Although Le Pen is a driving force in contemporary anti-Islam politics, oppression towards Muslim communities is nothing new for France. Legal precedent to regulate religion in France dates back to 1905 with the creation of a principle called laïcité, which sought to promote a more secular France and protect the public from outward impositions of religion. However, this principle has often been weaponized. In practice, politicians have used laïcité to disproportionately limit the ability of Muslims to practice their religion to its fullest extent.
For example, the French government has regulated settings in which women can wear hijabs, interpreting it as a symbol of gender oppression rather than of religion. In 2010, France introduced a bill regulating full face coverings, such as the burka and the niqab.
After decades of colonization and the erasure of culture, Islamophobia reached a watershed moment in 2015 when two Muslim brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi, killed 12 French workers at satirical newspaper outlet Charlie Hebdo in the name of radical Islam. This attack sparked a stream of protests and social media outcries, producing lasting impacts in the form of increased Islamophobic hate crimes and setting the stage for Le Pen’s rhetoric to take hold.
This attack also gave way to further laїque legislation in 2021, when policymakers moved to amend the original law regulating the hijab, making it illegal for minors to wear. Moreover, the attack corresponded with the increased political influence of the National Rally party—France’s far-right political party—between 2017 and 2022.
As immigration from Muslim majority countries to France increases, and far-right rhetoric continues to push xenophobia and Islamophobia, hate crimes and internal divisions are sure to follow suit, endangering the Muslim community.
Editors’ Note: Datasets from DisinfoLab’s research on this topic can be found here.
DisinfoLab would like to thank Willem Morris for his tremendous support in data collection for this project.
