| dc.description.abstract | Over the past decades, France has faced a significant challenge concerning radical Islam and a surge in domestic religious-motivated terrorist attacks. This study investigates President Emmanuel Macron’s responses to jihadi-motivated terrorism in France, by examining the complex interplay between national identity constitution, terrorism, and the French model of secularism, laïcité. The analysis explores how Macron navigates the reconstruction of national identity in response to terrorist acts. Through an analysis of four of Macron's speeches delivered in 2018 and 2020, this study investigates the rhetorical reconstitution of laïcité as a pillar of French national identity. In this thesis, I develop an analytical model which draws on the works of Kenneth Burke (1969), Maurice Charland (1987), and newer textual approaches. The model brings together textual tools that help examine national identity-building in times of crisis. Constitutive rhetoric holds significant importance in understanding the constitution of identities, narratives, and social realities through the use of language. However, unlike most recent applications of constitutive rhetoric, I employ the basic premises of constitutive rhetoric defined by Burke (1969) which is concerned with the process of identification in rhetoric. This research contributes theoretically and methodologically to the field by bringing the constitutive rhetoric literature to the political science discipline. It enriches the understanding of how political leaders employ rhetoric to shape and construct national identity in the context of terrorism. At the same time, the findings can provide a better understanding of how Western countries, in similar situations as France constitutes national narratives. | eng |