UNIVERSALISM AND EXCLUSION: IMMIGRANTS THROUGH THE LENS OF FRENCH LAW AND MEDIA

Abstract

This research examines France’s Immigration Law LOI n°2024-42 du 26 janvier 2024 and its representation in three mainstream media outlets across the ideological spectrum: Le Figaro (right), CCFD-Terre Solidaire (left), and France Info (center). Using Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1995) and Maurice Halbwachs’s theory of collective memory, the study explores how legal and media discourses construct symbolic and administrative boundaries of national citizenship. Findings reveal that integration is framed not as civic inclusion, but as the internalization of a singular national identity and memory. Media reinforce this framework through divergent but convergent discursive strategies. At the macro level, the law regulates who belongs, who remembers, and who is erased from national narratives. These results underscore how republican universalism operates as a normative discourse of exclusion and open possibilities for future research on migrant counter-narratives and comparative legal discourses in postcolonial Europe.