Renaud Camus on The Great Replacement, mass murderers, French elections, globalization, and more

Renaud Camus is a French writer, political theorist and intellectual. Born in 1946 in Chamalières, Auvergne, after being politically active as a Socialist in the ’60s and ’70s and establishing himself as an influential novelist especially in the gay community (mostly thanks to his 1979 autobiographical novel Tricks), Camus went on to publish several works of political philosophy. He holds a bachelor’s degree in French literature at the Sorbonne and a Master in philosophy at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, as well as two Masters in political science and history of law. He has also taught French literature in the US.

To most in the West however, Camus is known for coining the term “The Great Replacement” in his 2011 work Le Grand Remplacement. The book was never translated into English, but the term has since been the subject of intense controversy and frequent references in Western media. Most recently, it has resurfaced in public discourse thanks initially to a New York Times‘ special and subsequently a media campaign against mainstream Republicans (and the Right more in general), following the mass shooting at Buffalo, New York, on Saturday, May 14.

In an effort to reach a deeper understanding of Mr. Camus’ work beyond the Western media’s superficial depiction of it, we decided to reach out for an exclusive interview. What follows, is a written exchange between Renaud Camus and Benjamin Braddock.

— The Editors

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“There are two social or professional categories one can rest assured their members have never read me: mass murderers and journalists.”
— Renaud Camus

Benjamin Braddock: When ‘The Great Replacement’ is spoken of in English-language media it is invariably described as a “conspiracy theory”, one undertaken by some shadowy cabal in which mass immigration is the result of a deliberate plot to destroy Western civilization. When I read your book Le Grand Remplacement however, I find instead a sober work of political economy that advances a critique of materialist globalism as an impersonal force stripping people of their cultural, spiritual, and ethnic attributes, and turning them into fungible units of homogenous labor. So what is “replacism”, and why do you think there’s such a radical difference between your work and the way it is perceived?

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