Before he walked into a Christchurch mosque in March 2019 to begin a murder spree that left 51 people dead, the white supremacist Brenton Tarrant posted a “manifesto” online that he titled The Great Replacement.
The title was a reference to a theory that has long circled in the French far right, promoted by writers such as Renaud Camus, 75, who in his book, Le Grand Remplacement, argued that his country’s white, Christian-based civilisation was being intentionally replaced by Islamic culture crossing from Africa, in a plot by global capitalists to ensure a ready supply of cheap labour.
It is a theory widely derided as racist, conspiratorialist, baseless and dangerous but, although Camus himself does not advocate violence, his writings have spread around the world