{"id":30720,"date":"2026-10-29T22:17:32","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T20:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=30720"},"modified":"2026-10-29T22:17:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T20:17:32","slug":"the-bible-of-the-far-right-the-book-the-camp-of-the-saints-more-relevant-than-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=30720","title":{"rendered":"The “Bible” of the Far Right, the book “The Camp of the Saints” \u2014 more relevant than ever"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The title of the famous novel The Camp of the Saints<\/em> (Le Camp des Saints<\/em>) is derived from the Book of Revelation in the Bible\u2014specifically, chapter 20, verse 9: “\u2026and they went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a dystopian novel by Jean Raspail which, in 1973, predicted the collapse of European civilization due to the mass, illegal migration of non-white peoples from Africa and Asia. The book has been translated into English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, Dutch, Hungarian, and Portuguese, among other languages. By twenty years ago, it had sold more than 500,000 copies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One morning in 1972, the French author Jean Raspail\u2014already known for his travelogues as well as his conservative, Roman Catholic, and monarchist views\u2014was at his home on the Mediterranean coast of France when he received the inspiration for his next book, in the form of a harrowing vision of millions of refugees invading Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Armed only with their weaknesses and their numerical superiority, worn down by destitution, and bringing with them a multitude of hungry brown and black children, they were ready to land on our soil”\u2014so begins the opening of the book that would become the most popular and notorious work in the author\u2019s entire body of writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The novel was published in France in 1973 and subsequently translated into many languages. Over the last half-century, it has become a go-to text for far-rightists, nationalists, racists, and xenophobes\u2014primarily in Europe, but also in the United States. This is especially true since it was adopted as a “modern-day Bible” by the infamous Steve Bannon, the “guru” of the international “Alt-right” (Alternative Right) movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, the book returned to the spotlight in the American and international media when it was revealed that Stephen Miller, an advisor to President Trump, had enthusiastically recommended it\u2014via personal emails\u2014to the editors of the far-right news website Breitbart<\/em>. He is neither the first nor the most prominent admirer of the book\u2014a work about which Marine Le Pen once remarked that, upon reading it at the age of 18, it “left an indelible mark” on her forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book\u2019s plot begins with the Belgian government urging its citizens to adopt young children from India as a way to alleviate the problem of overpopulation\u2014a “frivolous” decision that is almost immediately rescinded when the Belgian consulate in Delhi is besieged by a throng of destitute parents. By then, however, it is too late: an unprecedented “armada” of one million migrants and refugees is already heading toward the European coast, traveling by every conceivable type of watercraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The novel\u2019s title is drawn from the Book of Revelation, describing the moment when Satan\u2019s armies encircle the earth (\u201cand they went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints\u201d). As for his research, Raspail drew upon his experiences visiting various destitute communities in Latin America, attempting to imagine what a mass influx of countless impoverished foreigners into France would mean for French civilization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book was first published in the United States in 1975. As the notorious New York Times<\/em> noted in its review at the time, \u201c\u2026it\u2019s like being trapped at a cocktail party with a guy who seemed normal at first, but suddenly launches into a wild, racist diatribe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forty-five years later, however, the book\u2019s contribution to what is now termed modern racial \u201chate speech\u201d no longer elicits mere amusement or glib, smart-alecky remarks. The book has dramatically reignited the theory of the “Great Replacement” (of the white European population by Afro-Asian immigrants)\u2014a term used as the title of his manifesto by Brenton Tarrant, the man who murdered 51 innocent people in New Zealand earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The author of the book Jean Raspail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Although Raspail acknowledged that his book could be considered “dangerous” in a certain sense, the author\u2014who remained vigorous and active in public discourse until the very end\u2014frequently stated in his final years that he “would not change a single word.” He maintained that the invasion described in The Camp of the Saints<\/em> is merely a narratively amplified version of the “infiltration”\u2014the term he used to characterize the phenomenon France has faced over the last few decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his book, he writes about the arrival of thousands of migrants from the Indian Ocean on the shores of France. The French government\u2014viewed as liberal and one that betrays its own people\u2014accepts the landing of these foreigners. Only a small minority of French patriots take up arms, attempting\u2014in vain\u2014to protect their nation from an impending “genocide” plotted by the migrants from the Indian Ocean. In Raspail\u2019s chilling book, the France of white French people ceases to exist. “We shall die slowly, eroded by millions of microbes that have entered our bodies,” says one of the Frenchmen resisting the influx of migrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Le Monde<\/em> notes that when the book was first published in 1973, the issue of migration was not a concern for Europe or the Western world\u2014which, in the midst of the Cold War, perceived communism as the primary threat to Western unity. The prominent Jean-Marie Le Pen\u2014who had been active during the Algerian War of Independence in the 1950s\u2014had founded the far-right “National Front” in France just a year earlier, in 1972. Although the establishment critics and the petty-minded press of the time ignored it, Raspail\u2019s book became known within the circles of the French Far Right (which was limited at the time), as well as among supporters of the Franco dictatorship in Spain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Racist tract”: In 1975, the book was translated into English, and the notorious, pro-Zionist New York Times<\/em> described it in a review as a “fiery racist tract.” Raspail portrays the dark-skinned Indians as a kind of… animal\u2014”a filthy mass,” “a million gesticulating savages.” The West, he wrote, functions as “a sewer of the Third World that is overflowing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ten years later, the book was republished in France. The magazine of the newspaper Le Figaro<\/em> (Le Figaro Magazine<\/em>) commissioned Raspail to prepare a “dossier on immigration,” dedicated to a people supposedly facing the threat of extinction: the French. “In thirty years, will we still be French?” the magazine asked\u2014featuring on its cover an image of “Marianne,” the symbol of the French Republic, wearing an Islamic headscarf!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Camp of the Saints” as a film script \u2013 In the mid-1990s, Steve Bannon discovered “The Camp of the Saints” after an American friend suggested it to him on the sidelines of the Cannes Film Festival. At the time, Bannon\u2014a former banker\u2014was attempting to break into the film production industry. “This book could make a great movie,” his friend had told him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, Bannon never brought the book to the screen. However, he was struck by how the French author portrayed the ruling elites as weak and submissive in the face of “the monster” represented by immigrants. He was also struck by the unvarnished ferocity with which Raspail attacked the “poisonous” media, whom he referred to as “whores.” In a sense, the book foreshadowed the far-right\u2019s attacks on the press that would follow in the years to come\u2014a strategy that Steve Bannon fully embraced when he took over the highly influential far-right American website “Breitbart” in the early 2010s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The “Great Replacement” theory\u2014ten years later, last year in 2025, the book regained its place within international nationalist and “far-right” circles, thanks to a new English translation [released by the publishing house Vauban Books, run by 53-year-old Ethan Randell, a former student at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Camp of the Saints<\/em> serves as the flagship title for this small publishing house, alongside a collection of texts by author Renaud Camus (b. 1946)\u2014a former socialist turned far-right figure who conceived the racial and quasi-political conspiracy theory known as the “Great Replacement” (the idea that white European Christians will be replaced by dark-skinned Muslim immigrants from non-Western countries). Renaud Camus\u2019s theory\u2014first articulated in 2010\u2014is embraced, to varying degrees, by many far-right parties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These include Marine Le Pen\u2019s “National Rally” and the “Reconquest” movement led by the French-Jewish former journalist \u00c9ric Zemmour in France; the “Alternative for Germany” (AfD); Fidesz, the party of former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n; Matteo Salvini\u2019s “Northern League”\u2014which is part of the governing coalition in Italy\u2014as well as the “Brothers of Italy” (Fratelli d\u2019Italia) party, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.<\/p>\n\n\n

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According to Steve Bannon, The Camp of the Saints<\/em> illustrates how state apparatuses, the media, and the Church collapse when they fail to defend Western civilization. “Some parts of it have become dated, but, taken as a whole, the book remains relevant.” “It\u2019s as if it were written just recently,” claimed the far-right American activist (who was sentenced to four months in prison for refusing to appear before the American justice system when summoned to testify regarding the events of January 6, 2021\u2014the day Trump supporters entered the Capitol, arguing that the Democrat Joe Biden had “stolen” the victory in the November 2020 election).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the invasion is initially peaceful, the sheer number of destitute people continuing to arrive from Asia constitutes, in itself, a threat to France and to all of Europe. Yet\u2014and herein lies the genius and foresight of Jean Raspail\u2014governments and cultural elites either do not know how to address the problem, or pretend not to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, with the complicity of religious organizations, leftist intellectuals, and humanitarian groups, they seek to pave the way through an intense propaganda campaign designed to make public opinion accept the advent of a multiracial society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the fleet of migrants reaches the French Riviera, a group of French citizens attempting to resist is bombed by the French Air Force itself\u2014dispatched by the government to safeguard the triumphant advance of the migrants. In a striking analogy, Raspail compares the migrant invasion of the West to the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consequently, the Asian horde encounters no resistance\u2014neither on a military or institutional level, nor, the author suggests, on a cultural one. France is an old country; it is no longer accustomed to war, and it possesses neither an identity nor a religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consequently, it succumbs\u2014without a fight\u2014to the sheer numbers and vitality of the dispossessed peoples of the Third World. These groups easily impose their own way of life upon French citizens, who\u2014partly due to the relentless barrage of propaganda\u2014passively accept these developments, even while harboring lingering doubts as to whether the emergence of a multi-ethnic society is truly the best of all possible worlds. “The Black man scrutinizes the White man as he speaks of humanity and perpetual peace. He senses the White man\u2019s incapacity\u2014and his lack of will\u2014to defend himself.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Europe is committing suicide: the sixty thousand African migrants who breached the Spanish border at Ceuta are merely the latest piece of evidence. While Spanish forces buckle under the strain, the continent\u2019s politicians issue statements and cameras record the events, yet nothing of substance is done. The invasion continues because, quite literally, no one is willing to stop it. This is the final phase of a civilization that has already decided to die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police lines are collapsing under the weight of the crowd; homes are being attacked, property is being destroyed, and local forces are struggling to maintain even the most basic order. Representatives of the European Right are making the expected pronouncements. Alice Weidel, of the AfD party, identifies Germany as the clear destination and demands the immediate closure of borders, as well as ruthless deportations. Herbert Kickl of the Freedom Party of Austria asserts that only a “Fortress Austria” can serve as a response to the EU\u2019s unbroken record of failures. Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella of the National Rally promise to “reform the Schengen Agreement,” restricting free movement exclusively to EU citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nigel Farage points to the young men in the videos and predicts that they will soon be in Calais. Geert Wilders speaks of an “Islamic invasion” and demands the return of the entire mass of people. The rhetoric is uniform, the sense of urgency theatrical, while the practical outcome\u2014thus far\u2014is identical to that of every previous crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Literally no one in Europe has any real intention of putting a stop to this situation. Both governments and the opposition merely watch the spectacle unfold. No defense is mounted, no organized resistance emerges; absolutely nothing halts the flow. The spectacle is both dismal and inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oswald Spengler described this in his monumental work, The Decline of the West<\/em>. Mass migration is a symptom of this decline, not its cause. Western civilization has entered its “winter” phase; the process follows its own immutable law and is irreversible. Just as an eighty-year-old cannot become sixteen again, the West cannot regain the vitality it has already exhausted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This indifference is not confined to the elite. The majority of ordinary Europeans are gripped by the same lethargy. The situation is reminiscent of Imperial Rome in its final stage, when 80% of the city\u2019s population consisted of foreigners, and only 20% were Romans. Even then, the emperor addressed an abstract “humanity” rather than the Roman people. Today, the cult of universalism continues to consume Europe. The end is coming\u2014once again!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A large segment of so-called “right-wing” parties vehemently denounces mass immigration during election campaigns; yet, once they assume power, they do absolutely nothing. This phenomenon has been dubbed the “Melonization effect.” Both Giorgia Meloni and Donald Trump employed extreme rhetoric regarding the specific measures they would take against this “invasion.” It is patently obvious that both broke their promises the moment they attained power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gap between the discourse used in opposition and actual governance is no longer surprising: it is structural. Political parties exist to channel popular rage into harmless directions, while the underlying demographic transformation continues unabated. The “Great Replacement” is real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a classic case of “imperial overstretch”: Western powers remain trapped in the effort to subjugate or reorder distant lands, while their own core sinks ever deeper into disintegration. Imperial Rome offers the clearest historical precedent: the very power that once projected its might across three continents found that its own capital had become demographically and culturally unrecognizable. The modern “West”\u2014the “Europe” of the EU\u2014is repeating this pattern, with only minor variations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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