Post-Truth Populism: The French Anti-Gender Theory Movement and Cross-Cultural Similarities

Synthesizing fledgling theories of post-truth (associated with Donald Trump and Brexit) and theories of emotions in populism, I analyze the right-wing French movement La Manif Pour Tous and their campaign against what they call “gender theory in the schools.” After identifying their populist qualities, I analyze the movement’s five prominent post-truth qualities on Facebook: (a) fake people; (b) active distrust; (c) emotion; (d) rumor bombs; and (e) backlashes. Considering the conjunctural specificity of social trust and truth deficits, I propose that post-truth and “rumor-bombing” aspects, simultaneous with their populist nature, are better understood as a kind of emotional truth or “emo-truth” in right-wing populist movements today. Finally, I propose cases like this may point to a mainstreaming of post-truth populism.