Discursive Elements in the (de)Banalisation of Nationalism. A Study of Speeches by Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy.

International audienceThe paper offers a study of the contributions of Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown to a dominant culturalist discourse on identity in Europe. In recent years, issues about immigration and integration have been central across the European community, concurrent with a general feeling of cultural insecurity. In this paper, I argue that mainstream political discourse has shifted from common sense nationalism into an even more ambiguous discourse by also taking over aspects of national-populism. The aim of the paper is consequently to show that common sense representations of nationalism tend to go beyond 'banal nationalism'. I suggest how a culturalist shift has occurred in their more overt use of nationalist representations. Thus, despite the formal aim to render a new social cohesion, the cultural references inherent to nationalism seem to generate an exclusionary imaginary, which not only allows the reproduction of nationalism but also promotes forms of exclusions, which foster introverted assertions of identities