Macron Denies ‘Great Replacement’ But Admits Migrant Integration Failures

A picture taken on December 15, 2021 shows a television screen broadcasting French TV chan
LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images
Chris Tomlinson

French President Emmanuel Macron has denied the existence of the “Great Replacement” and claimed France is a country of immigrants, but has admitted migrant integration failures in recent decades.

The French president said he did not believe in the Great Replacement, a theory coined by writer Renaud Camus to describe the ongoing rapid demographic shifts taking place in Europe and elsewhere as elites in business and politics view human beings as interchangeable, replaceable things. The theory has become a major talking point in France in recent weeks.

“When we talk about these phenomena, it is better to first look at the figures,” President Macron told broadcaster Tf1 this week and added: “Since the end of the 19th century, we have been a nation of immigration, with part of that immigration having been integrated through work.”

“It has helped the growth of our country, to move forward. When I hear the nonsense of saying zero immigration… There has never been zero immigration, that is not true. […] I don’t believe in the Great Replacement. It’s not here,” the French president added.

Macron’s remarks were largely directed at opposition presidential candidate and conservative pundit and writer Eric Zemmour who has referenced the Great Replacement many times in the past and has called for a zero immigration policy as part of his presidential platform.

“Zero immigration will become a clear objective of our policy,” Zemmour said at his first campaign rally earlier this month in the Paris suburb of Villepinte.

President Macron did admit in his remarks, however, that migrant integration efforts in France have seen troubles in recent years, saying: “What is true is that in recent decades, we have not integrated well.”

“Our economy was not strong enough, we did not adapt our efforts to integrate, and we had a policy that consisted of building neighbourhoods where we put all the difficulties in the same place. We segregated our country. It was three mistakes, and we are in the process of gradually correcting them,” Macron said.

The French president has previously railed against so-called parallel societies in France, particularly Islamic parallel societies, and has vowed to tackle issues of separatism following the murder of teacher Samuel Paty last year.

The death of Paty, who was beheaded by a Chechen refugee Islamist radical, sparked the Macron government to vow to crack down on radical Islam in France as well as to promise to confront political Islam.

President Macron also admitted that immigration into France has increased in recent years, but blamed the phenomenon on “political crises” and people trafficking networks, saying: “The answer is not to say that there will be a Great Replacement.”

Despite the French leader’s denial of the Great Replacement, the theory has caught the attention of many in France and a recent poll released in November claimed that as much as half of the French public believes in the theory.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com

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