France was hurt, divided and in need of a great federating event after recent elections. And Emmanuel Macron framed the Olympic Games as an opportunity to “unite around a France that welcomes the world”, calling for a “political truce” during that time.

    Conservatives, however, believe that the great moment of national cohesion has yet to take place. From the Republican party to the far-right National Rally, politicians throughout the conservative spectrum have described the opening ceremony’s scenes as “insults to the nation” and largely approached the event as a Trojan horse for the “woke ideology”.

    Often heard in France in tandem with another idiom, “islamo-leftism” (islamo-gauchisme), which denounces the alleged proximity of the left with Islam, wokisme is increasingly the bête noire of a fringe of the political establishment. My research as part of the project funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche, HLJPGenre (History of Law and JurisPrudence, studied from a gender perspective), has already led me to analyse and decipher the use of the terms “woke” and “wokisme”.

    But what exactly is “woke ideology” - or as the French would call it, wokisme?

    Insult through awakening

    The word “woke” comes from English. From the verb “to wake”, the noun qualifies a group of people who have woken up and suddenly taken up the issue of discrimination.

    The progressive movements targeted by the term are far from exclusive to the English world, however. In France, conservatives tend to focus their anger on the left’s promotion of gender-neutral inclusive language, and championing of minorities as modern excesses. And yet, any Francophile knows that the country is home to a rich feminist tradition starting with Simone de Beauvoir as well as the progressive ideals of the 1789 French Revolution.

    Semantic analysis of “antiwoke” discourse reveals that they are using an English term to evade openly discriminating against minorities’ protected by so-called woke ideology. The term’s catch-all and vague nature is to the benefit of the ones using it, making it easier for them to colour its targets negatively.

    Scenes of unease on the Seine

    Following a process of moral panic, woke critics often denounce the left’s general identity politics without identifying a clear target. The opening ceremony remedied this, with the niece of Marine Le Pen, Marion Maréchal, promptly taking to X to criticize the scene mistaken for a satire of the Last Supper:

    “I believe it’s quite clear, we can see Dionysos arriving at the table. He’s there, because he’s the god of festivity, wine, and father of Sequana, goddess linked to the river. The idea was to throw a great pagan party linked to the gods of Olympus, Olympus”

    “On the Paris Olympics’ official poster, the cross at the top of the Invalides has been erased and not a single French flag appears. The decision to make our identity invisible is an unacceptable mistake. Wokism must be fought against everywhere without wavering”

But what does the law say?

    Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.