T
he fight against the far right is, among other things, a battle of words, and this battle is off to a poor start. With terms such as "sidaïques" (a slur for people with AIDS), "Français de papier" ("French people on paper"), "européiste" (a term denigrating pro-European views) or "immigrationniste" (denigrating support for immigrants), historic far-right figure Jean-Marie Le Pen began the hostilities decades ago.
Now, as if "migratory submersion" were not enough, the expression "great replacement," coined by far-right writer Renaud Camus in 2010, has become so commonplace – especially since the 2022 presidential election campaign – that its true meaning has almost been forgotten. It is based on a myth that claims there is a deliberate plan to replace the European population with Africans, through immigration and demographics.
According to Camus, "political and media elites," particularly Jews, were pulling the strings. He also did not hesitate to describe the purported operation as "genocide by substitution." Camus, a writer-turned-ideologue, was only able to emerge from obscurity through his racist and antisemitic outbursts, as explained by Gaspard Dhellemmes and Olivier Faye in L'Homme par qui la Peste Arriva ("The Man Who Brought the Plague"). Indeed, in 2017, he argued that the Holocaust was "somewhat small-scale" compared to his alleged "great replacement."
