page_title: Renaud Camus
section_title: Political activism (2012–present)
hierarchical_section_title: Renaud Camus / The "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory / Political activism (2012–present)
caption_attribution_description: English: Renaud Camus et Karim Ouchick au château de Plieux, en mars 2019.
context_page_description: Jean Renaud Gabriel Camus is a French writer and novelist. He is known as the creator of the "Great Replacement", a conspiracy theory which claims that a global elite is colluding against the white population of Europe to replace them with non-European peoples.
  Camus' views on "the great replacement" have been translated on extreme-right websites and adopted by far-right groups to reinforce their white genocide conspiracy theory.
context_section_description: He was a candidate in the 2012 French presidential election, with a program ranging from "serious proposals, such as the repatriation of foreign-born criminals", to unusual themes in French politics, likes "the right to silence, abolishing wind-farms, banning roadside ads, making sanctuaries of remaining unspoiled places, stopping the production of cars that can go faster than the speed limit, and recognising Israel, Palestine and a Greater Lebanon for Christians in the Middle East." He nonetheless failed to gain enough elected representatives presentations to be able to run for president, and eventually decided to support Marine Le Pen.
  In 2017, French essayist Alain Finkielkraut caused controversy after he invited Camus to debate the "Great Replacement" on the literary talk show Répliques at the public radio France Culture. Finkielkraut justified his choice by arguing that Camus, who "is heard and seen nowhere, has shaped an expression that we hear everywhere."
  On 9 November 2017, Camus founded, with Karim Ouchikh, the National Council of European Resistance, an allusion to the WWII French National Council of the Resistance. The pan-European movement—with other members the likes of Jean-Yves Le Gallou, Bernard Lugan, Václav Klaus, Filip Dewinter or Janice Atkinson—seeks to oppose the "Great Replacement", immigration to Europe, and to defeat "replacist totalitarianism."
  In December 2017, he declared: "The presidential election that took place [in 2017] was the last chance for a political solution. I don't believe in a political solution [...] because in 2022, this time, it will be the occupants, the invaders, [i.e. the immigrants] who will vote, who will be the masters of the elections, so anyway the solution is no longer political".
  After white supremacist protesters at the 2017 Unite The Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia were heard chanting "You will not replace us" and "Jews will not replace us," Camus stated that he did not support Nazis or violence, but that he could understand why white Americans felt angry about being replaced, and that he approved of the sentiment. On November 2018, he released a book directly written in English and intended for an international audience, titled You Will Not Replace Us!
  In May 2019, Camus ran, along with Karim Ouchikh, for the European parliament elections: "we shall not leave Europe, we shall make Africa leave Europe," they wrote to define their agenda. During the campaign, a photograph of a candidate on his ballot kneeling before a giant swastika drawn on a beach re-emerged on social media. Camus decided to withdraw from the election, claiming that the swastika was "the opposite of everything [he had] fought for [his] whole life." As of March 2020, he still defends his "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory on his Twitter account, where he is very active and has more than 40,000 followers.
caption: Renaud Camus with Karim Ouchikh during their 2019 European campaign
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