FAR-RIGHT FRENCH POLEMICIST SPREADS XENOPHOBIC HATE SPEECH ON TWITTER

French GTTO partner LICRA is planning on taking legal action against Renaud Camus based on a recent post on Twitter in which he shared extremely hateful xenophobic sentiments.

The post said: “A box of condoms given in Africa means three drowned bodies in less in Mediterranean Sea, one hundred thousand euros saved for the Family Services Agencies, two prison cells free and 3 centimetres of sea ice preserved”. LICRA is looking to pursue legal action on the groups of defamation and incitement of hatred.

This is not an isolated incident for Camus, a well-known polemicist amongst the far-right. In 2012, Camus published a book titled “The Great Replacement” which builds on the theory that native European communicated are being replaces by North African and sub-Saharan African immigrant, many from a Muslim background. The book and theory have been used heavily by the far-right in France. 

The terrorist who committed the deadly attacks in Christchurch earlier this year was also inspired by Camus’ work, going as far as to title his manifesto the same as Camus’ book: The Great Replacement. Far-right politicians, such as Geert Wilders of the Netherlands, have also often cited Camus’ work. It is therefore fair to say that Camus’ hate speech reaches far.

In a worrying development, Camus is standing for the European elections. Together with Karim Ouchikh he published a “Letter to Europeans” proclaiming why they are standing for the European elections. In the letter, they state: “Europe is today a hundred times more colonised by Africa than it has ever colonised itself, and in a far more serious and deeper way, because this colonisation is demographic. It therefore threatens to be irreversible, if the anti-colonial or decolonial revolt does not take place very quickly.”

This is an ongoing case and developments in regards to the legal case will be provided.