This dissertation argues that after the attack on Charlie Hebdo, competing ideologies about French national identity as they relate to the relationship between France and Islam emerged in media op-ed discourses, revealing an extension of the civilizing mission. More specifically, hegemonic conceptualizations of French national identity that simultaneously construct the Self and the Other were [re]produced and reinforced. Equally, this moment witnessed the transformation of well-established notions with the goal of [re]imagining and [re]shaping national identity. By examining French media op-eds written shortly before and after the attacks on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, in Libération, Le Monde, and Le Figaro, through a Critical Discourse Studies lens, I demonstrate how French national identity is constructed by highlighting the incompatibility of France and Islam, recycling deeply engrained notions about colonized subjects and their incompatibility with French values. Competing ideologies simultaneously call for assimilation and cement members of the French Muslim community as fixed with the impossibility of assimilation, recycling colonial narratives from France’s mission civilisatrice. Equally, the positioning of French Muslims and Islam as existential or security threats to France racializes Muslims as outsiders who pose a threat to France and its national identity. However, alterization and racialization are met with resistance by French Muslims who challenge their interpellation as Other by linguistically approximating Islam and France and centering diversity in their [re]constructions and transformations of national identity.
The dissertation begins with the historical sociopolitical background needed to understand the contemporary relegation of French Muslims outside of the national imaginary. From there, I turn to the theoretical framework demonstrating how the ideological, abstract French citizen has been historically constructed as white and non-Muslim, highlighting the close relationship between whiteness and French identity. I then introduce the methodological and theoretical framework used for data collection, interpretation, and analysis before shifting focus to the ways in which French national identity is constructed and transformed by non-Muslim and Muslim op-ed writers through the examination of metaphor, pronominal use, and modality.