Dédiabolisation and anti-antisemitism as legitimising tool? The strategy of, and response to, the National Rally’s pro-Jewish framing on Facebook and X

Existing research has analysed the impact of the moderation of radical and exclusive language, de-demonisation (dédiabolisation), on the French populist radical right party National Rally (Rassemblement National), which began in the 1980s and was intensified following the takeover of Marine Le Pen from her father in 2011. An integral part of this strategy was a stricter approach to antisemitism in the party. As a result, the RN today presents itself as a staunch defender of the French Jewish community, particularly against a perceived shared enemy of Islam. However, the impact of, and reasoning behind, this self-presentation is comparatively under-researched. This paper uses tenets of discourse-historical analysis of Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) posts shared by RN official pages and high-profile RN members between 2017 and early 2023, and demonstrates how Jews are accepted into their body politic in order to justify the party’s anti-government, anti-immigrant, anti-Islam, and anti-left messaging. Jews are included as long as their victimhood serves to bolster a wider national collective victimhood, often at the hands of these actors. This paper also uses inductive coding to analyse the comments left by users engaging with RN posts, the majority of which reiterate, reflect, and occasionally escalate the party’s “anti-“ sentiments, demonstrating the RN’s framing of Jews and antisemitism as a legitimising and mobilising strategy, which further encourages intolerance.