A week after shootings in the Paris suburbs of Trappes and La Verrière that are being investigated as a terrorist attack motivated by race, the mayor of Trappes has called for the "great replacement" theory – which claims white French people are being deliberately replaced by non-Europeans – to be banned by law.
Issued on: 30/10/2026 - RFI
Supporters of the far-right Reconquete party, led by Eric Zemmour, hold up signs reading "Defend our civilisation" at a party meeting near Lyon, in 2024. AP - Laurent Cipriani
By: Alison Hird
Mayor Ali Rabeh wants France to make promoting the "great replacement" theory a criminal offence.
He proposes amending France’s 1881 press law to punish people who portray a group as part of a process of population replacement because of their origin, religion, ethnicity or supposed race. He argues that existing penalties for racist speech are insufficient.
His proposal follows an attack in his town, a suburb west of Paris, in which a 26-year-old black French man, Pengo Bossio Wangi, was killed and seven people were injured.
The 39-year-old suspect, Kévin Tessier, has been charged and remanded in custody. Investigators are treating the case as a suspected terrorist attack motivated by the victims’ actual or perceived race, ethnicity, nationality or religion.
Tessier is reported to have told investigators: "I can no longer stand being invaded, doing nothing about it."
"The words of the terrorist are clear," Rabeh told FranceInfo on Friday, "This reflects very precisely the logic of the great replacement theory."
The mayor also accused the far-right National Rally (RN) party of helping to create the ideological climate behind the attack, although that accusation has not been established as part of the investigation.
'Genocide by substitution'
French writer and intellectual Renaud Camus coined and popularised the expression "great replacement" in his 2011 book Le Grand Remplacement.
The theory purports that an elitist group is colluding against white French and European people to replace them with non-Europeans, particularly people from Africa and the Middle East, many of them Muslim.
In an interview in February with right-wing talk show host André Bercoff, Camus said: "The great replacement is not a theory. It’s a crime and a dreadful fact that nobody denies anymore."
The writer said people who talk about immigration "are in fact collaborators in the genocide by substitution," adding that he was "very much in favour of remigration".
In April 2014, a Paris court convicted Camus over remarks made at a December 2010 event – the International Conference on the Islamisation of Our Countries – fining him €4,000 and awarding €500 in damages to the NGO the Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between Peoples.
The court found he had presented Muslims as “invading warriors” whose aim was the destruction and replacement of the French people, and that his language urged listeners to resist the supposed “invader".
The Paris Court of Appeal confirmed the conviction in April 2015.
Then in 2020 he was convicted over tweets he posted and a public speech targeting immigrants of African origin. He received a two-month suspended prison sentence and was ordered to pay €1,800 to the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism and SOS Racisme.
He was acquitted of this charge on appeal in March 2022.
Roots in anti-Semitism
Camus did not invent great replacement ideology, which draws on fears around immigration, racial mixing and the perceived loss of national identity that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Historians say such ideas were frequently expressed through anti-Semitism and anxieties about colonial populations.
“Renaud Camus conceptualised it and brought it into political discourse,” said Yvan Gastaut, a historian at Cote d’Azur university. “But we find this concept, for example, in Edouard Drumont’s La France juive ["Jewish France"] in 1886.”
In 1900, Maurice Barrès, the father of French nationalism, gave further traction to the concept at a time when France was deeply divided over the wrongful conviction of Jewish artillery officer Captain Alfred Dreyfus.
Writing in Le Journal, Barrès warned that low French birth rates, wartime losses and immigration by "new French people" would lead to an "invasion" of French territory and blood that would "ruin our homeland".
Barrès, a high-profile anti-Dreyfusard and anti-Semite, was chiefly targeting Jewish immigration and influence.
"Anti-Semitism was extremely mainstream," Aurelien Mondon, a political scientist at the University of Bath, told France 24. "Barrès spoke about the idea of racial purity," – which the Nazis went on to popularise during the Second World War.
Mondon argues that after the War, parts of the European far right increasingly shifted away from explicit claims of racial superiority towards arguing that different cultures should remain separate.
Theory enters public debate
In France, the theory has become increasingly visible in debates and discussions about immigration and national identity.
Éric Zemmour, the far-right pundit and former presidential candidate, who hopes to run again in 2027, has disseminated the great replacement theory in his books Le Suicide Français ("French Suicide") and Destin Français ("French Destiny").
Valérie Pécresse, the conservative candidate in the 2022 presidential election, also sparked controversy by referring to the theory during a campaign rally.
“The great replacement theory has indeed entered public debate,” Nicolas Bancel, a historian specialising in colonialism, told Public Sénat. “Previously favoured mainly by far-right figures such as Éric Zemmour, it has gradually shifted towards the mainstream right."
The debate intensified in September this year when Aurore Bergé, France’s anti-discrimination minister, declined to describe the theory as racist.
While acknowledging it was factually false and misleading, she said: "I think classifying it as racist would mean we’re not allowed to discuss it. I’d prefer to fight it."
Bancel disagrees. "To say that this theory is not racist is false, because its originators have never concealed that fact. The racial component is at the heart of this theory.”
Bergé's position also drew criticism from politicians in her own camp. "Aurore Bergé, you explain that a racist theory is to be debated like a political opinion? Racism is a crime," wrote Prisca Thévenot, an MP with President Macron’s Renaissance group.
Weapon of the alt-right
While historians and researchers reject the theory’s central claim that demographic change is evidence of a coordinated plan to replace white Europeans, it has gained traction internationally – particularly in the United States, where it has become associated with the alt-right and white nationalist movements.
After tens of thousands of African migrants reached the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in July this year, Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News presenter who now hosts an anti-establishment online podcast, released a video promising to tell viewers who was really behind "the invasion".
"The great replacement is no longer a theory," he said, introducing a discussion on Ceuta with Holocaust denier Darryl Cooper, who has claimed that the millions of deaths in Nazi concentration camps were the unplanned result of logistical failures amid wartime chaos rather than a planned genocide.
The US version of France's great replacement theory is often referred to as "white genocide".
"It's a very protean idea," Matthew Feldman, an expert on fascism and white supremacy, told The Daily Telegraph. "It has been used to attack blacks, Latinos, Jews and Muslims. It's perfect for the racist, as it ties together everybody who isn't white, plus the Jews, in one grand, poisonous concept."
Valérie Igounet, a historian and deputy director of the French organisation Conspiracy Watch, described it as “a theory which is unambiguously xenophobic and conspiratorial”.
“It has led to terrorist attacks,” she says, citing the 2019 Christchurch massacre in New Zealand, when gunman Brenton Tarrant killed 51 people at two mosques. He entitled his manifesto "The Great Replacement".
Other such attacks include the 2011 shooting of 77 people at a Labour Party youth summer camp on the Norwegian island of Utoya, and the 2018 killing of 11 Jewish worshippers in Pittsburgh.
By: Alison Hird
Mayor Ali Rabeh wants France to make promoting the "great replacement" theory a criminal offence.
He proposes amending France’s 1881 press law to punish people who portray a group as part of a process of population replacement because of their origin, religion, ethnicity or supposed race. He argues that existing penalties for racist speech are insufficient.
His proposal follows an attack in his town, a suburb west of Paris, in which a 26-year-old black French man, Pengo Bossio Wangi, was killed and seven people were injured.
The 39-year-old suspect, Kévin Tessier, has been charged and remanded in custody. Investigators are treating the case as a suspected terrorist attack motivated by the victims’ actual or perceived race, ethnicity, nationality or religion.
Tessier is reported to have told investigators: "I can no longer stand being invaded, doing nothing about it."
"The words of the terrorist are clear," Rabeh told FranceInfo on Friday, "This reflects very precisely the logic of the great replacement theory."
The mayor also accused the far-right National Rally (RN) party of helping to create the ideological climate behind the attack, although that accusation has not been established as part of the investigation.
'Genocide by substitution'
French writer and intellectual Renaud Camus coined and popularised the expression "great replacement" in his 2011 book Le Grand Remplacement.
The theory purports that an elitist group is colluding against white French and European people to replace them with non-Europeans, particularly people from Africa and the Middle East, many of them Muslim.
In an interview in February with right-wing talk show host André Bercoff, Camus said: "The great replacement is not a theory. It’s a crime and a dreadful fact that nobody denies anymore."
The writer said people who talk about immigration "are in fact collaborators in the genocide by substitution," adding that he was "very much in favour of remigration".
In April 2014, a Paris court convicted Camus over remarks made at a December 2010 event – the International Conference on the Islamisation of Our Countries – fining him €4,000 and awarding €500 in damages to the NGO the Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between Peoples.
The court found he had presented Muslims as “invading warriors” whose aim was the destruction and replacement of the French people, and that his language urged listeners to resist the supposed “invader".
The Paris Court of Appeal confirmed the conviction in April 2015.
Then in 2020 he was convicted over tweets he posted and a public speech targeting immigrants of African origin. He received a two-month suspended prison sentence and was ordered to pay €1,800 to the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism and SOS Racisme.
He was acquitted of this charge on appeal in March 2022.
Renaud Camus published "The Great Replacement" in 2011, claiming the populations of France and other European nations are being supplanted by non-white migrants. AP - Oleg Cetinic
Roots in anti-Semitism
Camus did not invent great replacement ideology, which draws on fears around immigration, racial mixing and the perceived loss of national identity that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Historians say such ideas were frequently expressed through anti-Semitism and anxieties about colonial populations.
“Renaud Camus conceptualised it and brought it into political discourse,” said Yvan Gastaut, a historian at Cote d’Azur university. “But we find this concept, for example, in Edouard Drumont’s La France juive ["Jewish France"] in 1886.”
In 1900, Maurice Barrès, the father of French nationalism, gave further traction to the concept at a time when France was deeply divided over the wrongful conviction of Jewish artillery officer Captain Alfred Dreyfus.
Writing in Le Journal, Barrès warned that low French birth rates, wartime losses and immigration by "new French people" would lead to an "invasion" of French territory and blood that would "ruin our homeland".
Barrès, a high-profile anti-Dreyfusard and anti-Semite, was chiefly targeting Jewish immigration and influence.
"Anti-Semitism was extremely mainstream," Aurelien Mondon, a political scientist at the University of Bath, told France 24. "Barrès spoke about the idea of racial purity," – which the Nazis went on to popularise during the Second World War.
Mondon argues that after the War, parts of the European far right increasingly shifted away from explicit claims of racial superiority towards arguing that different cultures should remain separate.
Theory enters public debate
In France, the theory has become increasingly visible in debates and discussions about immigration and national identity.
Éric Zemmour, the far-right pundit and former presidential candidate, who hopes to run again in 2027, has disseminated the great replacement theory in his books Le Suicide Français ("French Suicide") and Destin Français ("French Destiny").
Valérie Pécresse, the conservative candidate in the 2022 presidential election, also sparked controversy by referring to the theory during a campaign rally.
“The great replacement theory has indeed entered public debate,” Nicolas Bancel, a historian specialising in colonialism, told Public Sénat. “Previously favoured mainly by far-right figures such as Éric Zemmour, it has gradually shifted towards the mainstream right."
The debate intensified in September this year when Aurore Bergé, France’s anti-discrimination minister, declined to describe the theory as racist.
While acknowledging it was factually false and misleading, she said: "I think classifying it as racist would mean we’re not allowed to discuss it. I’d prefer to fight it."
Bancel disagrees. "To say that this theory is not racist is false, because its originators have never concealed that fact. The racial component is at the heart of this theory.”
Bergé's position also drew criticism from politicians in her own camp. "Aurore Bergé, you explain that a racist theory is to be debated like a political opinion? Racism is a crime," wrote Prisca Thévenot, an MP with President Macron’s Renaissance group.
Weapon of the alt-right
While historians and researchers reject the theory’s central claim that demographic change is evidence of a coordinated plan to replace white Europeans, it has gained traction internationally – particularly in the United States, where it has become associated with the alt-right and white nationalist movements.
After tens of thousands of African migrants reached the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in July this year, Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News presenter who now hosts an anti-establishment online podcast, released a video promising to tell viewers who was really behind "the invasion".
"The great replacement is no longer a theory," he said, introducing a discussion on Ceuta with Holocaust denier Darryl Cooper, who has claimed that the millions of deaths in Nazi concentration camps were the unplanned result of logistical failures amid wartime chaos rather than a planned genocide.
The US version of France's great replacement theory is often referred to as "white genocide".
"It's a very protean idea," Matthew Feldman, an expert on fascism and white supremacy, told The Daily Telegraph. "It has been used to attack blacks, Latinos, Jews and Muslims. It's perfect for the racist, as it ties together everybody who isn't white, plus the Jews, in one grand, poisonous concept."
Valérie Igounet, a historian and deputy director of the French organisation Conspiracy Watch, described it as “a theory which is unambiguously xenophobic and conspiratorial”.
“It has led to terrorist attacks,” she says, citing the 2019 Christchurch massacre in New Zealand, when gunman Brenton Tarrant killed 51 people at two mosques. He entitled his manifesto "The Great Replacement".
Other such attacks include the 2011 shooting of 77 people at a Labour Party youth summer camp on the Norwegian island of Utoya, and the 2018 killing of 11 Jewish worshippers in Pittsburgh.
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