how Valérie Pécresse arouses controversy by taking up the far-right theory of the “great replacement”

“Everyone shoots on Valerie Pécresse. This sentence of the deputy Robin Reda was pronounced before the big meeting of the candidate of the Republicans at the Zénith de Paris but it is all the more true, Monday February 14, the day after the speech given by the president of the Ile-de- France in front of 7,500 people. Because Valérie Pécresse affirmed that there was no fatality. Neither to the great downgrading, nor to the great replacement”.

Popularized by the writer Renaud Camus, thehe theory of the “great replacement” ensures that a conspiracy piloted by elites would aim to replace “the people” of France by another people. VSThis unfounded theory hasThe racist and xenophobic overtones towards the North African and sub-Saharan populations, or those originating from these regions, is widely highlighted by the far-right candidate Eric Zemmour.

>> Presidential: candidate Zemmour’s obsessions

In his book France has not said its last wordthe former polemicist even writes that “the ‘great replacement’ is neither a myth nor a plot, but an unrelenting process”. Marine Le Pen, the National Rally candidate, has already mentioned this theory, while rejecting it. Unlike the number 2 of his party, Jordan Bardella.

The “great replacement” had, until this meeting, never been brandished by a representative of the Republicans. Xavier Bertrand and Jean-François Copé have also called the right-wing candidate the presidential to reposition itself after the use of this expression. Franceinfo returns to this controversy in three acts.

1Valérie Pécresse pronounces the term

Sunday’s meeting was particularly expected, while the Les Républicains party has suffered several defections in recent weeks. In particular Eric Woerth and Christian Estrosi, who showed their support for Emmanuel Macron. Or Guillaume Peltier, who became spokesperson for Eric Zemmour.

>> Valérie Pécresse put to the test of her first major meeting

Referendum of popular initiative, obligation for the beneficiaries of the RSA to give fifteen hours of activity to the company… A few announcements punctuated the hour of speech by Valérie Pécresse in front of 7,500 people at the Zénith de Paris. But it is a sentence pronounced at the beginning of his speech that monopolizes all the attention. Valérie Pécresse assured that she wanted “rekindle the hopes of a single and universal nation”greeting the citizens, “their work, their bravery, their artistic and scientific genius”.

“We are at the crossroadsshe said. For the first time, the fate of the world could be written without us. In ten years, will we still be the seventh power in the world? Will we still be a sovereign nation (…) or an auxiliary of the United States, a counter of China? Will we be a united nation or a split nation? And Valérie Pécresse to answer, solemnly: “No fatality. Neither the big downgrade, nor the big replacement. I’m calling you with a start.”

2The political class says it is flabbergasted

Since the meeting, the reactions of political opponents accumulate. Socialist Party candidate Anne Hidalgo believes that “it’s one more Rubicon (…) crossed by the right”. guest on franceinfo monday february 14, lhe first secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, said to himself “flabbergasted” to see Valérie Pécresse “to take up the words of the far right” in a speech but also “The whole far-right semantic and ideological register. Frankly, we already had two far-right candidates, we didn’t need a third.”

The deputy La France Insoumise Clémentine Autain took up the term “great replacement” in order to designate “from the right by the extreme right”,. For SOS Racisme, these remarks are not “not worthy of a major contender for the presidency of the Republic”.

Aurélien Pradié, secretary general of the Republicans and spokesperson for Valérie Pécresse, denounces a “terrible bad faith”, in an interview with franceinfo on Monday. According to him, “Valérie Pécresse has said for several months that she does not believe in this theory, nor in that of the great downgrading”.

But the controversy is cringe internally. According to information from the political service of France Télévisions, the tenors of the right warned the candidate during a meeting held on Monday morning: “We must clarify, say that the ‘great replacement’ is not us”, would have launched Xavier Bertrand. Before Jean-François Copé adds: “You must mark the barrier with the extremes.”

3The candidate tries to justify herself

Invited in the morning of RTL, Valérie Pécresse was surprised that the controversy swells so much, pointing the “winkle memory” from some. “At each conclusion of the primary debates, I said that there is no fatality to the ‘big replacement’, nor to the big move”she justified.

“When you listen to Eric Zemmour or Marine Le Pen, they tell you: ‘It’s done, it’s inevitable’. I don’t.”

Valérie Pécresse, LR presidential candidate

on RTL

The president of the Ile-de-France region thus refuses to “resign”citing his proposal for a migration law “with quotas”the principle of “zero visa with countries that do not take back their illegal immigrants”the end of automatic family reunification, the end of automatic jus soli.

But does she think that this supposed replacement exists? “There are today, in France, areas of ‘non-France’, in which we have concentrated the social difficulties and we have concentrated the populations who have just arrived”, she judged on RTL. Before continuing: “There are areas of ‘non-France’, but I am not resigned to this ‘great replacement’. It’s something I’ve been saying for months, I don’t understand the controversy.”

According to her spokeswoman Agnès Evren, the Republican candidate has therefore “disproved this theory”. “To be French is to share the love of France, the values, not to know if one is white, black or mixed race. That there is a concentration of immigrants in certain neighborhoods is a reality, that does not mean not say that there is a great replacement or that France has changed its face”she said on RFI.

Difficult then to see clearly. For Brice Teinturier, Deputy CEO of Ipsos, the problem with this large gap is “that she tries to hold the two tendencies of the right-wing electorate”, “possibly incompatible”.


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