9 - Contrasting Terrorist Figures: Far-Right Extremists and Jihadists in Contemporary French Cinema

Summary

Introduction

On 13 November 2015, France's capital experienced the deadliest terrorist attack to occur on French soil since the Second World War. The multi-site attack took place at the Stade de France, the Bataclan theatre, and various cafés across the city, resulting in the deaths of 130 people. Of the 151 terrorism-related fatalities in Europe that year, 148 took place in France (Europol 2016, 10). The context surrounding the attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo earlier that same year famously ignited widespread public debate surrounding the limits of free speech and the extent of Islamophobia in France, a discussion which has since been explored in a wide range of scholarship and public discourse (Todd 2015; Plenel 2016; Wolfreys 2017). While the debate over Islamophobia in France continued, the increase in right-wing extremist terrorism was overshadowed. According to Europol, in 2014 France reported no right-wing terrorist attacks, compared to seven recorded in 2015, with a sharp increase in anti-Muslim violence in the immediate aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks (2016, 41). Although these attacks were reported in French news media, they were often classified as actes anti-musulmans (anti-Muslim acts) by sources across the political spectrum (Beunaiche 2015; France 24 2015; Le service Metronews 2015; Les Echos 2015), downplaying their violent nature. With these events reported as terrorism by French authorities and recognised as such by Europol, but downplayed by French media simply as anti-Muslim ‘acts’ rather than ‘attacks’ or ‘violence’, a distinct tendency to euphemise far-right terrorism reveals itself.

These events have made terrorism a pertinent topic in France, and their portrayal on screen is now emerging as a burgeoning area of interest within French cinema. This chapter will argue that the tendency within French news media to euphemise far-right violence is carried over to contemporary mainstream French cinema. However, as this chapter aims to show, the favourable portrayal of white terrorists is not confined to those motivated by far-right extremism and extends also to white and white-presenting Jihadist extremists; in these portrayals of terrorism, racial bias can be seen despite the ideology of the terrorist figure. To demonstrate how white terrorists are depicted in less demonising ways, this chapter will consider two recent French-language representations of terrorist figures.