Far-right French candidate makes taboo term his mantra

Two words considered taboo for many in France because they evoke a conspiracy theory embraced by white supremacists are haunting the French presidential campaign

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 presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, an outsider with views to the right of the far-right who has made the term the underpinning of his campaign. But when mainstream conservative presidential candidate Valerie Pecresse pronounced them at her first major rally last weekend, politicians and pundits screamed foul, saying she had crossed a red line.

The ”great replacement” is the false claim that the native populations of France and other Western countries are being overrun by non-white immigrants — notably Muslims — who are allegedly supplanting, and one day will erase, Christian civilization and its values. The claim, popularized by a French author, has inspired deadly attacks in recent years from New Zealand to El Paso, Texas.

Critics said Pecresse was normalizing a dangerous falsehood that immigration figures in France do not corroborate.