Sabrina Sebaihi and Steevy Gustave, who both represent the Green Party, Les Écologistes, in the French National Assembly, have tabled a bill to ban references to ‘the Great Replacement’ and remigration.
The bill, which was tabled following the racist attack in Trappes on 23 October, in which one man was killed and seven others injured, aims, according to its sponsors, to ‘strengthen the fight against statements that incite hatred and racist and xenophobic acts’, reports franceinfo.
The idea of banning any mention of population replacement was raised by the mayor of Trappes, Ali Rabeh, shortly after Kevin T.’s atrocities.
According to Sebaihi and Gustave
‘this theory is based on the claim that the French population of European origin will gradually be replaced by immigrant groups, who are portrayed as alien to the nation and its identity. This theory contributes to spreading a racist image of society. It can become a source of racist hatred and discrimination”.
It is therefore not a legitimate expression of opinion, the former explains:
“This is not a point of view; it is a racist theory,” points out Sabrina Sebaihi.
Nevertheless, she notes, it has now become commonplace to say such things.
Due to the spread of these theories in ‘certain media’, the MP explains that she has ‘been warning for several months’ about ‘the division that exists in the country’ with ‘these women having their veils torn off, these insults and these assaults’. ‘These notions of the great replacement and remigration were previously the preserve of a political fringe on the far right. But today, the republican dam has completely burst.” The MP refers in particular to the Minister responsible for combating discrimination, Aurore Bergé, who has not explicitly described this theory as a “racist theory”.
The two Green politicians go further than Rabeh:
The authors of the bill also turn the spotlight on the concept of ‘remigration’, which they believe is ‘based on the collective expulsion of individuals on the grounds of their actual or presumed origin’ and may “constitute an incitement to hatred, discrimination or violence”.
In their view, the two concepts are linked, and the proposed legislative text states that
‘incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence may, amongst other things, result from statements which – by referring to the replacement of one population with another, or to the need for remigration – characterise a group of people as a threat on account of their origin or their actual or presumed affiliation to an ethnic group or nation’.
For such statements, Sebaihi and Gustave propose up to three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros.
The term ‘the Great Replacement’ was coined by the French author Renaud Camus, but he is not alone in publicly asserting that a population replacement is taking place in France.
The French philosopher Michel Onfray also does so. During a public discussion with Onfray in 2022, the author Michel Houellebecq also stated that population replacement is a fact. Jean-Luc Mélenchon talks about the same phenomenon, but calls it ‘creolisation’ instead, Onfray noted.
