The French ‘military intervention’ that began in Mali on January 11th is also a war of words in which the socialist government has adopted the semantic flavour and colour of neo-conservative rhetoric, argues Mediapart political correspondent Stéphane Alliès, who presents here some choice examples of ministerial sleight of tongue.
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The question of language was decided from the very beginning, with officials told to never use the words ‘Islam’ or ‘Islamists’, but rather ‘criminal terrorists’ or ‘fanatics’.
In a blog post published last week entitled ‘The French version of the war on terror’, Laurent Mucchielli, a research director in sociology with the French scientific research centre, the CNRS, wrote: “François Hollande announced on Saturday January 12th that France has ‘no other aim than the fight against terrorism’. It is ‘at war against terrorism’ repeated the defence minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, on Sunday. The [foreign affairs minister] Laurent Fabius went further, describing the armed Malian groups as ‘criminal terrorists’, saying that ‘when you see terrorists rushing’ towards Bamako ‘you doesn’t ask yourself metaphysical questions’: you intervene.”
Neither fighters, nor pirates, nor guerillas, nor rebels; did the Jihadists and Tuaregs of northern Mali commit “terrorist acts”, a term that has, historically, been used differently according to particular situations? Take another example of the neo-conservative self-prophesying sophistry, with French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian’s comment on hostage taking last week at the Algerian gas plant of In Amenas. After having announced a “war against terrorism, wherever it is found”, Le Drian described the events in Algeria as “an act of war”. Thus the circle is completed. Never mind the details, this is no time for complexity.
George W Bush-like maxims are, when sending out simple messages at a time of war fought amidst an uncertain outline, as useful as they are repeated over and over to the point of caricature. Here we have foreign minister Fabius talking of war against “absolute evil”, while President Hollande invoked the domino effect, describing French intervention in Mali as “the only solution” to secure the capital Bamako, to halt the progression of the “terrorists” in order to save “other threatened African states”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has talked of “liquidating” terrorists, colourfully promising to do this “even if we find them in the toilet” . During the bloody terror attacks in Paris during 1986, the then junior minister in charge of national security, Robert Pandraud, promised to “terrorise the terrorists”. Now, President Hollande has, in a more sedately but no less martial manner, promised to “destroy” them.
Of course, the French socialist government employs a softer version of neo-con semantics that is different to that of the US Republicans under the presidency of Bush junior. The French take is more ‘neo-com’. Unlike the contempt towards international institutions demonstrated by the Bush administration, Paris has shown respect of the United Nations and the campaign in Mali involves a multilateral effort.
The 'enemy within'
Some of the terms used by the French government flirt with infamous phrases from the past. Interior minister Manuel Valls has talked of “the enemy within”, a notion first coined in France with the Dreyfuss affair. In a much-applauded speech at the French Socialist Party conference in Toulouse last autumn, Valls thundered against “sects promoting the Jihad and hate against France”, later that same month describing them, at a meeting organised by the police officers’ union Alliance, as the “enemy within”. Speaking on Europe 1 radio this Monday, January 21st, he warned of the terrorist threat against France: “We have an enemy outside, but also an enemy within, one that is made up of a few dozen individuals who are dangerous, who must be monitored, who must be neutralized.”
Finally, beyond the somewhat classic and ever-effective image-building campaign of a presidential hopeful playing war chief, (a logical move under a 5th Republic that was created by a former military figure), there is the issue of manipulation of the media.
Press photographers were excluded from a meeting of Hollande’s ‘war cabinet’ held on January 12th, when the event was covered only by one of the official photographer for the Elysée Palace. The pictures were later distributed to the media, and several titles refused to publish them. Then, on January 16th, the French defence ministry sent editorial offices an email demanding that journalists “respect security instructions” and follow the advice of the French foreign office and armed forces in Mali as to “the zones where you should not travel to”.
Just as soon as that email was sent, another one came from Reporters Without Borders, the French NGO promoting freedom of the press (Reporters sans Frontières), demanding that journalists are given free access to battle zones in Mali. Denouncing a “war behind closed doors”, it deplored that “international and local journalists are being blocked, since the beginning of the military intervention, at more than 100 kilometres from the combat zones”, which it described as “a grave constraint”.
There is cause for concern and vigilance here, lest coverage of the campaign in Mali becomes limited to embedded journalists, as was the case in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Especially as the first few reports from those journalists who have succeeded in reporting from out-of-bounds areas suggest there have been chilling, murderous reprisals by elements of the Malian army (see here ).
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English version: Graham Tearse