Islamophobic rhetoric moved from fringe into mainstream French politics

Evidence

The anti-Muslim virus that had torn up the streets of Bondy years earlier spread through France’s sickened political body and popular discourse. Early on, leaders along every plot of the ideological spectrum dubbed the hijab a “marker of difference” and an “affront to civilization,” sound bytes that infected the political discourse and invited bigoted extremists into French corridors of power. Fringe populist political parties were now front and center, and the explicit Islamophobic rhetoric that once conflicted with French political sensibilities was now mainstream. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 708

Categorization

• XREF: Shows the state-learning/cross-national dimension the reader seeks; links to Iftikhar’s global-synthesis lens on diffusion of Islamophobic discourse. — connects to: French establishment shifted from denouncing to embracing the Muhammad cartoons by 2020; Islamophobic propaganda moves right-wing to mainstream to center — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 698