Why is Jean-Luc Melenchon talking about the ‘Great Replacement’ theory?

Jean-Luc Melenchon has broken a taboo in French, and Western, politics. The de facto leader of the French left, whose La France Insoumise party is the driving force of the coalition that won most seats in last July’s legislative elections, told students in Toulouse: ‘Yes, Mr (Eric) Zemmour, there is a Great Replacement! This replacement is that of a generation coming after the other and which will never resemble the previous one’.

Melenchon was aiming his remarks at Eric Zemmour. The controversial journalist turned incendiary politician has came under relentless attack after he promoted the Great Replacement as a central plank of his election manifesto during his run for the French presidency in 2022.

For years, this idea has been dismissed as nothing more than a far-right fantasy. The Guardian described it in 2022 as ‘the racist premise that white Americans and Europeans are being actively “replaced” by non-white immigrants’. But Melenchon, who has been called ‘France’s Jeremy Corbyn’, can hardly be characterised as far-right, even if his comments are somewhat tongue-in-cheek.