  The gamma-ray emission of RX J1713.7-3946, despite being extensively studied
in the GeV and TeV domain, remains poorly understood. This is mostly because in
this range, two competing mechanisms can efficiently produce gamma rays: the
inverse Compton scattering of accelerated electrons, and interactions of
accelerated protons with nuclei of the ISM. In addition to the acceleration of
particles from the thermal pool, the reacceleration of pre-existing CRs is
often overlooked, and shall in fact also been taken into account. Especially,
because of the distance to the SNR ($\sim 1$ kpc), and the low density in which
the shock is currently expanding ($\sim 10^{-2}$ cm$^{-3}$), the
re-acceleration of CR electrons pre-existing in the ISM, can account for a
significant fraction of the observed gamma-ray emission, and contribute to the
shaping of the spectrum in the GeV-TeV range. Remarkably, this emission of
leptonic origin is found to be close to the level of the gamma-ray signal in
the TeV range, provided that the spectrum of pre-exisiting cosmic ray electrons
is similar to the one observed in the local interstellar medium. The overall
gamma-ray spectrum of RX J1713.7-3946 is naturally produced as the sum of a
leptonic emission from reaccelerated CR electrons, and a subdominant hadronic
emission from accelerated protons. We also argue that neutrino observations
with next-generation detectors might lead to a detection even in the case of a
lepto-hadronic origin of the gamma-ray emission.
