Great Replacement, the Success of a Slogan
Introduction
Prolog
In the fields of philosophy and social theory, it is fair to say that France has lost some of its clout in the last decades. The heyday of the so-called French theory, regardless of whether it ever referred to a cohesive body of work, is clearly behind us. Where a distinctively French influence is still noticeable, however and alas, is in the realm of the cultural artefacts shaping the white supremacist imaginary. Interestingly, the characters responsible for this dubious remnant of national glory are no longer the scholars and public intellectuals of yore but fiction writers.
Most prominent among them are the late Jean Raspail, whose 1973 novel, The Camp of Saints, holds a special place in the political formation of Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller and Marine le Pen; Renaud Camus, whose main claim to fame remains the coining of the expression “Great Replacement” back in 2010; and the reactionary provocateur Michel Houellebecq, whose islamophobia is matched only by his misogyny. According to the French sociologist Éric Fassin, who wrote about both, Camus and Houellebecq deserve special attention, talent or lack thereof notwithstanding, because their trajectories and obsessions enable us to grasp the continuities but also the shifting grounds upon which the far-right worldview prospers.
First known as a chronicler of gay life, Renaud Camus' unexpected ethnonationalist coming out occurred in 2000,when he lamented the overrepresentation of Jews on French public radio. Subsequently ostracized, Camus responded by veering further to the right but also by dropping the “Jewish question” to focus, like Raspail before him, on the allegedly mortal peril represented by non-European migrants. Hence his “Great Replacement” warning, according to which white people were being gradually replaced by alien populations on both sides of the North Atlantic.
While his literary work is hardly ever read, Camus’ formula has turned out to be remarkably inspiring for a wide array of people, from mass murderers like Brenton Tarrant, to reactionary pundits, nativist politicians and, increasingly, allegedly mainstream conservatives. Beyond the slogan itself, Eric Fassin explains in the interview he gave to Diagram.me.s, the self-appointed champion of a waning Western civilization proved influential in his Orwellian use of language, hijacking the words of the left to portray white supremacists as the new resistance fighters against genocide by substitution.
While Camus revels in the appropriation of emancipatory discourse, Michel Houellebecq has long been remarkably adept at using ostensible irony as a cover. A far more successful novelist than the creator of the “Great Replacement” brand, he initially sought refuge behind the creative freedom of a literary artist to discredit charges of overt racism and sexism. As Éric Fassin remarks, such a strategy worked quite well until his most offensive statements moved beyond the realm of fiction. Once his own success and an auspicious media environment incited him to speak like his characters in interviews and other public appearances, his ironic cover was then quickly blown.
Though invariably informed by resentment, the evolution of Houellebecq’s phobic vision is noteworthy, Éric Fassin further shows. From the unfortunate fate that the liberalization of the sexual market has reserved for unattractive men his worries then shifted from liberal excesses and feminist thought police toward the incidence of Islam’s growing influence, especially on sexual freedom. Houellebecq’s Islamophobic obsession became especially salient in his 2015 novel Submission, a “great replacement” fable about an Islamist candidate winning the presidential election in France. Remarkably though, the “colonized” or “occupied” society his book describes is not so different from the pre-sexual revolution France that his earlier novels longed to restore.
Aside from replacement anxieties, Éric Fassin indicates, what Camus and Houellebecq share is a great admiration for Israel and its approach to national security. In light of his antisemitic record, Camus’ enthusiasm for the Jewish State may seem surprising. However, what the Cassandra of white extinction sees in Israel is a country ready to go to great lengths to preserve the ethnocultural integrity of its people. He thus considers it a model that other threatened nations like France should seek to emulate.
His staunch pro-Zionist stance has also led Camus to denounce a version of his Great Replacement thesis that has recently gained considerable support, especially in the US. Instead of merely opposing the white population on the verge of being replaced to the non-whites seeking to replace them, this other version introduces a third cohort, namely the Jewish replacists, who take it upon themselves to organize the replacement of whites by non-whites. Notwithstanding Camus’ misgivings about it, this rival version of the big racial scare is popular enough to make us wonder about an impending clash of far-right visions. Speculating on what this conflict of interpretations may entail, both for the MAGA coalition in the US and for the European branches of the reactionary international is how we ended our conversation with Éric Fassin.
Our interview took place in Paris on November 28, 2025.
Prolog
In the fields of philosophy and social theory, it is fair to say that France has lost some of its clout in the last decades. The heyday of the so-called French theory, regardless of whether it ever referred to a cohesive body of work, is clearly behind us. Where a distinctively French influence is still noticeable, however and alas, is in the realm of the cultural artefacts shaping the white supremacist imaginary. Interestingly, the characters responsible for this dubious remnant of national glory are no longer the scholars and public intellectuals of yore but fiction writers.
Most prominent among them are the late Jean Raspail, whose 1973 novel, The Camp of Saints, holds a special place in the political formation of Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller and Marine le Pen; Renaud Camus, whose main claim to fame remains the coining of the expression “Great Replacement” back in 2010; and the reactionary provocateur Michel Houellebecq, whose islamophobia is matched only by his misogyny. According to the French sociologist Éric Fassin, who wrote about both, Camus and Houellebecq deserve special attention, talent or lack thereof notwithstanding, because their trajectories and obsessions enable us to grasp the continuities but also the shifting grounds upon which the far-right worldview prospers.
First known as a chronicler of gay life, Renaud Camus' unexpected ethnonationalist coming out occurred in 2000,when he lamented the overrepresentation of Jews on French public radio. Subsequently ostracized, Camus responded by veering further to the right but also by dropping the “Jewish question” to focus, like Raspail before him, on the allegedly mortal peril represented by non-European migrants. Hence his “Great Replacement” warning, according to which white people were being gradually replaced by alien populations on both sides of the North Atlantic.
While his literary work is hardly ever read, Camus’ formula has turned out to be remarkably inspiring for a wide array of people, from mass murderers like Brenton Tarrant, to reactionary pundits, nativist politicians and, increasingly, allegedly mainstream conservatives. Beyond the slogan itself, Eric Fassin explains in the interview he gave to Diagram.me.s, the self-appointed champion of a waning Western civilization proved influential in his Orwellian use of language, hijacking the words of the left to portray white supremacists as the new resistance fighters against genocide by substitution.
While Camus revels in the appropriation of emancipatory discourse, Michel Houellebecq has long been remarkably adept at using ostensible irony as a cover. A far more successful novelist than the creator of the “Great Replacement” brand, he initially sought refuge behind the creative freedom of a literary artist to discredit charges of overt racism and sexism. As Éric Fassin remarks, such a strategy worked quite well until his most offensive statements moved beyond the realm of fiction. Once his own success and an auspicious media environment incited him to speak like his characters in interviews and other public appearances, his ironic cover was then quickly blown.
Though invariably informed by resentment, the evolution of Houellebecq’s phobic vision is noteworthy, Éric Fassin further shows. From the unfortunate fate that the liberalization of the sexual market has reserved for unattractive men his worries then shifted from liberal excesses and feminist thought police toward the incidence of Islam’s growing influence, especially on sexual freedom. Houellebecq’s Islamophobic obsession became especially salient in his 2015 novel Submission, a “great replacement” fable about an Islamist candidate winning the presidential election in France. Remarkably though, the “colonized” or “occupied” society his book describes is not so different from the pre-sexual revolution France that his earlier novels longed to restore.
Aside from replacement anxieties, Éric Fassin indicates, what Camus and Houellebecq share is a great admiration for Israel and its approach to national security. In light of his antisemitic record, Camus’ enthusiasm for the Jewish State may seem surprising. However, what the Cassandra of white extinction sees in Israel is a country ready to go to great lengths to preserve the ethnocultural integrity of its people. He thus considers it a model that other threatened nations like France should seek to emulate.
His staunch pro-Zionist stance has also led Camus to denounce a version of his Great Replacement thesis that has recently gained considerable support, especially in the US. Instead of merely opposing the white population on the verge of being replaced to the non-whites seeking to replace them, this other version introduces a third cohort, namely the Jewish replacists, who take it upon themselves to organize the replacement of whites by non-whites. Notwithstanding Camus’ misgivings about it, this rival version of the big racial scare is popular enough to make us wonder about an impending clash of far-right visions. Speculating on what this conflict of interpretations may entail, both for the MAGA coalition in the US and for the European branches of the reactionary international is how we ended our conversation with Éric Fassin.
Our interview took place in Paris on November 28, 2025.
Biography of Éric Fassin
Éric Fassin is a professor of sociology and gender studies in the political science department at Université Paris 8 Vincennes–Saint-Denis. He previously taught in the United States (Brandeis University and New York University), then at the École normale supérieure (Paris), where he had been a student. In 2015, he co-founded the first CNRS Laboratory for Gender and Sexuality Studies (LEGS), and is now affiliated with Sophiapol (Paris Nanterre / Paris 8). Since 2021, he has been a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF). He is a regular visiting professor at numerous universities (in the United States, Europe, and Latin America). He is publicly engaged on issues he works on academically – gender, sexuality, race and their intersections, minority politics in democratic societies and their political, literary, and artistic representations, as well as anti-intellectualism, academic freedom, and democracy.
Select bibliography
Books
La Savante et le politique. Ce que le féminisme fait aux sciences sociales (avec Caroline Ibos), Presses Universitaires de France, 2025
L’Art c’est la vie. Else von Freytag-Loringhoven critique de Marcel Duchamp (avec Joana Masó), Macula, 2025
Les Études de genre, coll. Que sais-je ?, Presses Universitaires de France, 2025
Misère de l’anti-intellectualisme. Du procès en wokisme au chantage à l’antisémitisme, Textuel, 2025 (1ère édition 2024)
State Anti-Intellectualism and the Politics of Gender & Race. Illiberal France and Beyond, CEU Press, 2024
Populisme : le grand ressentiment, Textuel, 2017
Gauche, l’avenir d’une désillusion, Textuel, 2014
Roms et riverains. Une politique municipale de la race - avec Carine Fouteau, Serge Guichard et Aurélie Windels, La Fabrique, 2014
Démocratie précaire. Chroniques de la déraison d’État, La Découverte, 2012
Book Chapters
« Le sexe qui parle » (postface), Les Hermaphrodites, inédit de Michel Foucault publié avec Arianna Sforzini, Gallimard, 2025
Discutir Houellebecq. Cinco ensayos críticos entre Buenos Aires y París - avec Hernán Vanoli, Judith Revel, Nicolás Mavrakis et Guillaume Boccara, Clave Intellectual, 2015
« Le vrai genre » (postface), Herculine Barbin dite Alexina B., présenté par Michel Foucault, nouvelle édition, Gallimard, 2014 (1ère édition 1978)
Préface de la parution française de Trouble dans le genre – Le féminisme et la subversion de l’identité de Judith Butler, traduit par Cynthia Kraus, La Découverte, 2005
Journal Articles
“Renaud Camus’s Grand Remplacement. From Bathmology to the New Question of Antisemitism”, Patterns of Prejudice (à paraître).
“Trump vs. Harris : du genre à l’intersectionnalité”, AOC, 18 novembre 2024
“Election de Donald Trump : ‘Le vote masculiniste a fini par l’emporter sur le vote féministe’”, Le Monde, 12 novembre 2024
« Libertés académiques et démocratie : tout dire, mais pas n’importe quoi », Revue des droits de l’homme, n°26, 2024. https://doi.org/10.4000/12hrc
“Le ‘Grand remplacement’ aux États-Unis : racisme, antisémitisme et antisionisme”, AOC, 8 janvier 2024
« Houellebecq antilibéral, du sexe à l’islam », Modern and Contemporary France, dir. Carole Sweeney et Russell Williams, 2019, vol. 27, n°1, p. 11-26.
“D’un langage l’autre : l’intersectionnalité comme traduction”, in Raisons politiques 2015/2 N° 58 “Les langages de l'intersectionnalité”, dir. Éric Fassin, Presses de Sciences Po, 2015
« Le roman noir de la sexualité française (Houellebecq) », Critique, numéro spécial « Eros 2000 », 637 - 638, juin - juillet 2000, p. 604 - 616.
Biography of Éric Fassin
Éric Fassin is a professor of sociology and gender studies in the political science department at Université Paris 8 Vincennes–Saint-Denis. He previously taught in the United States (Brandeis University and New York University), then at the École normale supérieure (Paris), where he had been a student. In 2015, he co-founded the first CNRS Laboratory for Gender and Sexuality Studies (LEGS), and is now affiliated with Sophiapol (Paris Nanterre / Paris 8). Since 2021, he has been a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF). He is a regular visiting professor at numerous universities (in the United States, Europe, and Latin America). He is publicly engaged on issues he works on academically – gender, sexuality, race and their intersections, minority politics in democratic societies and their political, literary, and artistic representations, as well as anti-intellectualism, academic freedom, and democracy.
Select bibliography
Books
La Savante et le politique. Ce que le féminisme fait aux sciences sociales (avec Caroline Ibos), Presses Universitaires de France, 2025
L’Art c’est la vie. Else von Freytag-Loringhoven critique de Marcel Duchamp (avec Joana Masó), Macula, 2025
Les Études de genre, coll. Que sais-je ?, Presses Universitaires de France, 2025
Misère de l’anti-intellectualisme. Du procès en wokisme au chantage à l’antisémitisme, Textuel, 2025 (1ère édition 2024)
State Anti-Intellectualism and the Politics of Gender & Race. Illiberal France and Beyond, CEU Press, 2024
Populisme : le grand ressentiment, Textuel, 2017
Gauche, l’avenir d’une désillusion, Textuel, 2014
Roms et riverains. Une politique municipale de la race - avec Carine Fouteau, Serge Guichard et Aurélie Windels, La Fabrique, 2014
Démocratie précaire. Chroniques de la déraison d’État, La Découverte, 2012
Book Chapters
« Le sexe qui parle » (postface), Les Hermaphrodites, inédit de Michel Foucault publié avec Arianna Sforzini, Gallimard, 2025
Discutir Houellebecq. Cinco ensayos críticos entre Buenos Aires y París - avec Hernán Vanoli, Judith Revel, Nicolás Mavrakis et Guillaume Boccara, Clave Intellectual, 2015
« Le vrai genre » (postface), Herculine Barbin dite Alexina B., présenté par Michel Foucault, nouvelle édition, Gallimard, 2014 (1ère édition 1978)
Préface de la parution française de Trouble dans le genre – Le féminisme et la subversion de l’identité de Judith Butler, traduit par Cynthia Kraus, La Découverte, 2005
Journal Articles
“Renaud Camus’s Grand Remplacement. From Bathmology to the New Question of Antisemitism”, Patterns of Prejudice (à paraître).
“Trump vs. Harris : du genre à l’intersectionnalité”, AOC, 18 novembre 2024
“Election de Donald Trump : ‘Le vote masculiniste a fini par l’emporter sur le vote féministe’”, Le Monde, 12 novembre 2024
« Libertés académiques et démocratie : tout dire, mais pas n’importe quoi », Revue des droits de l’homme, n°26, 2024. https://doi.org/10.4000/12hrc
“Le ‘Grand remplacement’ aux États-Unis : racisme, antisémitisme et antisionisme”, AOC, 8 janvier 2024
« Houellebecq antilibéral, du sexe à l’islam », Modern and Contemporary France, dir. Carole Sweeney et Russell Williams, 2019, vol. 27, n°1, p. 11-26.
“D’un langage l’autre : l’intersectionnalité comme traduction”, in Raisons politiques 2015/2 N° 58 “Les langages de l'intersectionnalité”, dir. Éric Fassin, Presses de Sciences Po, 2015
« Le roman noir de la sexualité française (Houellebecq) », Critique, numéro spécial « Eros 2000 », 637 - 638, juin - juillet 2000, p. 604 - 616.