Le Bras, Hervé. Il n’y a pas de grand remplacement. Grasset & Fasquelle. 2022. pp. 140.
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| Author | Benjamin P. Nickels |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.13185 |
International Migration. 2023;61:357–358.
|
357
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/imig
Received: 1 June 2 023
|
Accepted: 27 July 202 3
DOI: 10 .1111/imig .13185
BOOK REVIEW
Le Bras, Hervé. Il n’y a pas de grand remplacement. Grasset & Fasquelle.
2022. pp. 140.
Benjamin P. Nickels
George C. Ma rshall European C enter for Securit y Studies, Garmis ch- Partenki rchen, Germany
Email: bpn.gcmc@gmail.com
Demographe r and historia n Hervé Le Bras has wr itten a succin ct and effe ctive argument in favour of his thesis
title: there is no Great Replacement. Contrary to media hype and political polemics, the French population is not
being comprehe nsively replaced by migran ts from the Middle East a nd Africa.
The book is broken into 12 bite- sized section s (marked by Roman numerals) that essentially fit into two halves .
The first half looks at d ocuments which have wittingly or u nwittingly contrib uted to the notion of the Great Re-
placement, includ ing a 2001 United Nations report (I), Je an Raspail's 1973 The Camp of the Saints (II) and a co uple
magazine articles from the mid- 1980s (III). Le Bras then reflects on French fears over German population growth
between the Franco- Prussian War and the leadup to the Second World War (IV), and he recounts the rise of Great
Replacement discourse in recent years ( V). The bo ok's second ha lf functions as a refutatio n of positions held in
that con temporary d iscourse. Le Bras show s how the Great Re placement traf fics in false quot ations (VI), poor
population projections (V II), partial st atistics (VIII) , racist “one- drop rule” thinking (IX ), simplistic no tions of com-
munity (X ) and a misreading of the mean ing of given names (XI).
Le Bra s disma ntles th e stati stica l claims of the Gre at Repla cement . Barri ng a majo r disrup tion to to day's tr end-
lines, France will experience no replacement during the next generation or well beyond. Back- of- the- envelope cal-
culations show that even by adopting the most extreme scenarios and countin g all non- European immigrants, all of
their childre n, and all children born with only one non- European immigrant parent, it is still hard to get anyw here
close to just 50% (muc h less 100%) of France's projecte d 2050 population (p74). Le Bras also topples th e concep-
tual pillars of the Gre at Replacement. Evoking the notion of rep lacement means drawing a star k line between two
homogenous mono liths – “replacements” and “natives” – in a way that ignores diversity on each side of that line as
well as considerable mixin g across it. Fixating on millions of entries into France forgets mill ions of departures from
France, as workers, students and tourists leave after a few years, months or just days in the Hexagon. Obsessing
over a supposedly pure and stable French culture being altered by Ar ab, African and Muslim influ ence requires
turning a blind eye to the Europeans who account for so much of France's immigration , as well as the revival of
Breton an d Basque reg ional names and the new fashion of giving English names. France is changing. Today the
country is hom e to little boys named Jean- Baptiste, Ahmed, Er wan and Tom.
The Great Replacement is in fact a react ion to change. It is a cultural p henomenon, an a rticulation of Fre nch
apprehension s and antipathies about the future, which is why dis proving it with numbers cannot put it to rest, as
Le Bras admirably ack nowledges at th e end of his book. Despite all evidence, the Great Re placement now p olls
at a healthy majority with t he French public (p7). The expression ha s given a name to a vague malaise, re ifying it
and bringing it to life , in the same way the term “horses hoe” captured and advance d the notion that left- wing and
right- wing political extremes tend to converge (p8). And metaphors matter. Le Bras ruminates on the differences
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