The Rise of a Green Scare? Analysing the French Government's Discourse on the Soulèvements de la Terre and Ecoterrorism

Sammanfattning

In October 2022, the Soulèvements de la Terre and other environmental movements demonstrated against the project of the megabasins in Sainte Soline, France. Following violent clashes between activists and security forces, the Minister of the Interior declared the activists' actions as ecoterrorism. As a consequence, terrorism rhetoric in relation to environmental activists entered French public discourse, as it did in American public discourse, highlighting the emergence of the Green Scare in the beginning of the twenty-first century. As follows, this thesis aims to assess the extent to which a Green Scare has emerged in France over the last two years. In this sense, this thesis aims to introduce the Green Scare phenomenon to a new context. This is done by analysing and discussing the discourse held by the French government from October 2022 to March 2024 in relation to the Soulèvements de la Terre. In addition, this is done through the lens of Altheide’s Discourse of Fear. Using discourse analysis, this thesis found that a Green Scare had emerged, as demonstrated by the presence of government hostility towards the environmental movements notably through the use of terrorism rhetoric, as well as the expansion of the terrorism definition and the expansion of anti terrorism legislation or anti activism legislation, overall contributing to the dissemination of fear as well as their stigmatisation, dehumanisation and delegitimization.