GONFREVILLE-L’ORCHER, France — The French rapper Médine’s songs are full of wordplay and jarring twists.

In one video, a woman who appears to be wearing a burqa whips around to reveal a nun’s habit — and a sign reading, “No burqa,” a wry comment on France’s ban on conservative Muslim dress. A cake marked “halal,” when sliced open by a woman dressed to symbolize France, reveals layers in the colors of the national flag, signaling that Muslims can be French, too.

While such satire is often celebrated in France, Médine, a Muslim of Algerian descent, has found himself accused of being a fundamentalist and failing to respect the basic principles of the republic. In contrast to the respect accorded to the irreverent cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo, the satirical newspaper that was the target of a terrorist attack last year, he said, his work is “looked on with the condescension that is reserved for everything coming from the housing projects.”

For more than 30 years, since rap made its way here from America, France has had a subculture of hip-hop artists like Médine, often referred to as “rappers with a conscience.” Most of them are of Arab or African descent, and they pride themselves on giving voice to the millions who make their lives in isolated low-income housing projects. They are now clashing perhaps more than ever with the country’s expanding far right and its vituperative denunciation of migrants and relentless hostility toward Muslims.