PARIS —
Two words — taboo for many in France because they evoke a conspiracy theory embraced by white supremacists — have been haunting the French presidential campaign.
“Great replacement” rolls off the tongue of far-right presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, who has unashamedly made the phrase the core of his campaign. It’s the false claim that the native populations of France and other Western countries are being overrun by nonwhite immigrants — notably Muslims — who are allegedly supplanting, and will one day erase, Christian civilization and its values.
But when conservative presidential candidate Valerie Pecresse used the same phrase at her first major rally last weekend, politicians and pundits cried foul, saying she had crossed a red line.
Critics said Pecresse, as a mainstream political figure in a way that Zemmour is not, was normalizing a dangerous falsehood that immigration figures in France do not support. The claim of “replacement,” popularized by a French author, has inspired deadly attacks in recent years from New Zealand to El Paso, Texas.
Pecresse later denied she was venturing into Zemmour’s far-right territory, contending that her brief remark was misconstrued. Still, the flap focused attention on Zemmour’s campaign mantra and underscored the threat he represents to mainstream conservatives.
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