French President Emmanuel Macron has incensed left-liberal lawmakers after he warned that France is going through a “process of decivilization,” in what some have speculated—rightly or wrongly—was a wink and nod to the famed author Renaud Camus’ idea of the “great replacement.”
The French president’s comments, which have prompted a whole host of reactions from prominent figures in the country’s political milieu, came during a Council of Ministers meeting on Wednesday, May 24th, where, in light of the chaos enveloping France at the moment, he expressed anxiety that the country is undergoing a “process of decivilization,” the newspaper Le Parisien reports.
Referencing the increasingly violent climate which has seen several attacks and threats against representatives and symbols of the state, namely elected officials and police officers, Macron, in his opening remarks, said: “We have to be uncompromising when it comes to substance. No violence is legitimate, whether verbal or against people. We need to work in depth to counter this process of decivilization.”
Macron’s choice of words, namely his use of the term “decivilization,” prompted anger among France’s left-liberal wing, who view the use of the term as an unmistakable reference to the French writer and controversial thinker Renaud Camus’ 2011 book Décivilisation. Camus is best known for coining the idea of the “great replacement,” which posits that globalist elites across the Western world are endeavoring to replace European populations with people from the global south.
Rather than focusing on France’s downward spiral into barbarism, leftist lawmakers instead chose to comment on the alleged ‘taboos’ that Macron broke with his choice of words. Alexis Corbière, a La France Insoumise (LFI) lawmaker in the National Assembly, leveled sharp criticism over Macron’s use of the term “decivilization,” saying: “To consider that this would be a pure coincidence is either a farce or distressing,”
Manon Aubry, an MEP for the Left faction, attacked Macron, saying: “The president endorses the smoky ‘decivilisation’ of the racist Renaud Camus.”
Rassemblement National (RN) chief Marine Le Pen, for her part, reacted cynically to Macron’s statements. On the set of CNEWS, she said:
For years now, I’ve been talking about enslavement, and I’ve been accused of all kinds of evils. Emmanuel Macron has once again proved us right about what we’re saying, except that we’ve been sounding the alarm for several years now, and he hasn’t listened.
Republican Party President Éric Ciotti, for his part, questioned Macron’s sincerity, saying that “if the President of the Republic was sincere about his fear of decivilization, he must must urgently reduce migratory flows and support our proposals.”
