By: Gabriella Raphel
April 28, 2022
In the run-up to France's presidential elections, voters experienced a mainstreaming of right-wing rhetoric, highlighted by the current discourse of three of the top five contenders. Central to such electoral rhetoric lies the issues of laicité and freedom of expression, two pillars of French society, that have been used to exacerbate anti-immigration and Islamophobic sentiments. This paper seeks to analyze the growing tensions around these core values and their impact on France’s social fabric.
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Gabriella Raphel (SFS’22) is a senior in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, majoring in international politics and minoring in religion, ethics and world affairs. She is Lebanese and grew up in London. Previously, she also lived in Paris and Hong Kong. Her interests include sectarianism and geopolitics in the Middle East as well as the intersection of religion and politics in Europe.
