Securitization in France and securitized citizen experience

France has experienced many terrorist attacks on its soil since 2015. These attacks have been securitized by the political elite with a political rhetoric that the very existence and identity of French society is under threat. This rhetoric has been followed by several security measures and security issues have been taken out of normal politics. Since terrorists identify themselves as Muslim, the emergency measures aim to deal with Muslims and Islam. Therefore, various rights and freedoms of French Muslims were damaged as a result of these measures. The visibility of Muslim minority in the French society has been increased since 1980s and this led to famous affaire de foulard in 1989. After the terrorist attacks French Muslim community issue have become more controversial. This thesis analyzes the security measures taken after several terrorist attacks and evaluates the impact of these measures on the Muslim minority living in France. French Muslims face integration (or assimilation) related problems every day since their culture and lifestyle are considered barbaric and uncivilized. French integration policies push Muslim citizens to give up their identity and culture as a result of politics of unease. The analysis of constitution and citizenship laws, Muslim representation in the media, the problems faced by Muslims in education, the difficulties created by laicité practices, and the concept of Islam de France show the challenges that Muslim French citizens encounter in their daily life. These also devalue the citizenship of French Muslims as they are treated as second-class citizens. Based on the argument that securitization is primarily a speech act, statements of French president and of members of the government and parliamentary speeches were analyzed through critical discourse analysis. In this context, it has been clarified how the emergency measures implemented in France are justified by the political elite and how the terrorist threat is discursively constructed within the framework of security. The major security measure, namely state of emergency, and the security practices enacted under state of emergency were analyzed as politics of exception. The state of emergency was harsh against French Muslims and the power given to the law enforcement resulted discriminatory acts against Muslim individuals. After the attacks, political elites legitimized securitization with political discourse. However, in order to maintain securitization and to tackle more effectively with Muslims who pose a perceived threat to French values, legislative changes were introduced which would continue to remain force after the end of the state of emergency. In this context, various anti-terrorist laws and an anti-separatism law were enacted. These laws transformed the exception into a norm which damaged Muslim citizens' certain rights and freedoms, particularly freedom of religion and conscience and freedom to worship. According to the securitization theory, the securitization is considered successful only if audience accepts the securitizing moves. According to various studies, French society generally accepts securitization moves. Therefore, it is indeed a successful securitization. However, as the security measures try to "deal with" Muslims and Islam, Muslim minority is the most affected audience and there is no data on whether the Muslim minorities accept this securitization. This study fills the gap in this area. In securitization studies, the audience is often overlooked. However, whether the securitization is successful or not is understood by the acceptance of the securitization by the receiving audience. Therefore, in this thesis, semi-structured interviews were conducted with French Muslims in order to understand the Muslims' thoughts on securitization and whether they accepted securitization. The study revealed that Muslim citizens feel that they are not equal with other French citizens, and they are not accepted as an intrinsic part of French society. The integration (and assimilation) policies and practices force Muslim citizens to become "robots" who does not believe in any religion. Any particular symbol of Islam is thought to be a terrorism threat. Since securitization is a message and response process, whether Muslims accept securitization was analyzed by the Coding-Decoding Model. According to this model, the audience may interpret or decode a coded message in three ways: dominant, negotiated, and oppositional. In other words, the receiver may directly accept the message, inflect the message to take account his/her social position, or directly reject the message. This way the coding-decoding model provides invaluable insights about whether the French Muslims accept the securitizing moves or not. The data obtained show that most of Muslims do not accept securitization, therefore securitization in France has failed for the Muslim audience. Those who accept securitizing moves are not French citizens (permanent residents in France) or foreign-born individuals and French citizens by choice. These people are less demanding in terms of rights and freedoms. By contrast, descendants of Muslim immigrants who are born and live in France, are more demanding since France is their "home". They do not accept the fact that their citizenship is not equal to another French citizen who is not a descendant of an immigrant. This situation leads us to question the famous French republican motto "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité" which promises freedom, equality, and fraternity for all citizens. However, as this thesis has showed Muslim French citizens have unquestionably become securitized citizens since the attacks.