The Camp of the Saints

1973 novel by Jean Raspail

The Camp of the Saints

Cover of the first edition

Author| Jean Raspail
Original title| Le Camp des Saints
Translator| Norman Shapiro
Language| French
Publisher| Éditions Robert Laffont

Publication date

| 1973
Publication place| France

Published in English

| 1975
Media type| Print (hardback and paperback)
Pages| 311
ISBN| 978-0-684-14240-1
OCLC| 1174645

Dewey Decimal

| 843/.9/14
LC Class| PZ4.R227 Cam PQ2635.A379

The Camp of the Saints (French: Le Camp des Saints) is a 1973 French dystopian fiction novel by author and explorer Jean Raspail. A speculative fictional account, it depicts the destruction of Western civilization through Third World mass immigration to France and the Western world. Almost 40 years after its initial publication, the novel returned to the bestseller list in 2011. It was first published in French in 1973 by Éditions Robert Laffont. It was translated into English by Norman Shapiro, and first published in English by Scribner in 1975.

On its publication, the book received praise from some prominent French literary figures, and through time has also been praised by some critics and politicians in Europe and the United States, but has also been widely criticized by both French and English-language commentators for conveying racist, xenophobic, nativist, and anti-immigration themes. The novel is popular within far-right and white nationalist circles.

## Inspiration

[edit]

The novel was authored by novelist and explorer Jean Raspail.[1][2][3] Raspail has said his inspiration came while at the French Riviera in 1971, as he was looking out at the Mediterranean.

> What if they were to come? I did not know who "they" were, but it seemed inevitable to me that the numberless disinherited people of the South would, like a tidal wave, set sail one day for this opulent shore, our fortunate country's wide-gaping frontier.[4]

The name of the book comes from a passage in the Book of Revelation depicting the apocalypse. Satan influences most of the nations of the Earth to gather for one final battle against "the camp of the saints," before being defeated for eternity:

> And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them. (20:7–9)

## Plot

[edit]

In Calcutta, India, Catholic priests promote the adoption of Indian children by those back in Belgium as a form of charity. When the Belgian government realizes that the number of Indian children raised in Belgium has reached 40,000 in just five years, an emergency policy attempts to halt the migration. Desperate for the chance to send their children to what they call a "land of plenty", a mob of desperate Indians swarms the consulate. As a Belgian aid worker works through the crowd, an Indian gong farmer known only as "the turd eater", carrying aloft his monstrously deformed child, begs him to take them back to Europe, to which the worker agrees.

The worker and farmer bring the crowd to the docks, where there are hundreds of ships once owned by European powers, now suited only for river traffic. Nevertheless, the crowd boards, and a hundred ships soon leave for Europe; conditions on board are cramped, unsanitary and miserable, with many passengers including children publicly fornicating. As the ships pass "the straits of Ceylon", helicopters swarm overhead, capturing images of the migrants on board to be published in Europe. Meanwhile, on the Russian Far East, the Soviet troops see masses of Chinese ready to enter Siberia but are reluctant to fight them.

As the fleet crosses the Indian Ocean, the political situation in France becomes more charged. At a press conference about the crisis, a French official who offers a speech in praise of the migrants is confronted by a journalist who claims he is merely trying to "feed the invaders" and demands to know if France will "have the courage to stand up to" the migrants when they reach France. The official decries this question as morally offensive and threatens to throw the journalist out when he continues to yell. Other journalists seek to inflame tensions between the French and Africans and Arabs already living in the country. Over time, these journalists begin to write that the migrant fleet is on a mission to "enrich, cleanse and redeem the Capitalist West". At the same time as the fleet is praised by those in Paris, the people of Southern France, terrified of the migrants' arrival, flee to the north.

As the fleet approaches the Suez Canal, Egyptian military forces fire a warning shot, causing the fleet to steer south, around the Cape of Good Hope. To the surprise of observers, the apartheid regime of South Africa floats out barges of food and supplies, which the migrants throw overboard. The international press is thrilled, believing the rejection of these supplies to be a political statement against the apartheid South African regime. Western leaders, confident the migrants will accept supplies from their "more virtuous" nations, organize a supply mission, funded by governments, charities, rock stars and major churches, to meet the migrants off São Tomé. However, the fleet does not stop for these barges either, and when a worker from the Pope's barge attempts to board one of the ships, he is strangled and thrown overboard. The press attempts to contain coverage of the murder.

When the migrants pass through the Strait of Gibraltar, the French president orders troops to the south and addresses the nation with his plan to repel them. However, in the middle of the address, he breaks down, demanding the troops simply follow their consciences instead. Most of the troops immediately desert their posts and join the civilians as they flee north, and the south is quickly overrun by the migrants. Some of the last troops to stand their ground take refuge in a small village, along with Calguès, an old man who has chosen to remain at his home, and Hamadura, a Westernized Indian who is terrified of his "filthy, brutish" countrymen and prides himself on having more in common with whites than Indians. The troops in this village, a total of nineteen Frenchmen and one Indian, surrounded by what they deem "occupied territory", remain the last defense of Western values and "Free France" against the immigrants.

The immigrants make their way north, having no desire to assimilate to French culture, but continuing to demand a First World standard of living, even as they flout laws, do not produce, and murder French citizens, such as factory bosses and shopkeepers, as well as the ordinary people who do not welcome them. They are also joined by the immigrants who already reside in Europe, as well as various left-wing and anarchist groups. Across the West, more and more migrants arrive and have children, rapidly growing to outnumber whites. In a matter of months, the white West has been overrun and pro-immigrant governments have been established, while the white people are ordered to share their houses and flats with the immigrants. The village containing the troops is bombed flat by airplanes of the new French government, referred to only as the "Paris Multiracial Commune". Within a few years, most Western governments have surrendered. The mayor of New York City is made to share Gracie Mansion with three African-American families from Harlem; migrants gather at coastal ports in West Africa and South Asia and swarm into Europe, Australia, and New Zealand; London is taken over by an organization of non-white residents known as the "Non-European Commonwealth Committee", who force the British queen to have her son marry a Pakistani woman; millions of black Africans from around the continent gather at the Limpopo River and invade South Africa; and only one drunken Soviet soldier stands in the way of hundreds of thousands of Chinese peasants as they overrun Siberia.

The epilogue reveals that the story was written in the last holdout of the Western world, Switzerland, but international pressure from the new governments, isolating it as a rogue state for not opening its borders, along with internal pro-migrant elements, force it to capitulate as well. Mere hours from the border opening, the author dedicates the book to his grandchildren, in the hopes they will grow up in a world where they will not be ashamed of him for writing such a book.

## Analysis

[edit]

The Camp of the Saints is a work of dystopian or apocalyptic fiction.[1][5][6] A key element of the text is the supposed vulnerability of the West, having lost its soul to materialism and a fixation on empty things in a period of decline and decay. Hence, Europe is deserving of extinction and the West so easily succumbs to mass migration in the narrative.[6] The book's tone largely presents these events as hopeless or inevitable, increasingly apocalyptic as the story goes on.[6] According to literary scholar Jean-Marc Moura, native French people are described in the novel as "[giving] in without a blow to the hyperbolic egalitarianism that 'swallows' them down to the rank of third-world men ... In such a context, racist deviations are inevitable ... The plot is thus biased, since the cards are dealt in such a way that racism and ostracism become conditions for survival. By painting the Third World in such aggressive colours, it gives Western characters little choice: destroy or die."[7]

In 2001, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) described The Camp of the Saints as "widely revered by American white supremacists" and "a sort of anti-immigration analog to The Turner Diaries", and attributed its popularity to the plot's parallels with the white genocide conspiracy theory.[8] Ryan Lenz, a senior investigative reporter for the SPLC, notes that "[t]he premise of Camp of the Saints plays directly into that idea of white genocide. It is the idea that through immigration, if it's left unchecked, the racial character and content of a culture can be undermined to the point of oblivion."[3] Political scientist Jean-Yves Camus argues that The Camp of the Saints, with its apocalyptic vision of a sudden and violent mass migration swarming towards Europe, is even more radical than Renaud Camus' Great Replacement theory, and therefore probably more influential on white nationalist terrorists.[9] The novel is popular within far-right and white nationalist circles.[1][10]

## Publication history

[edit]

The Camp of the Saints was first published in French in 1973 by Éditions Robert Laffont.[11][7]

### English translation

[edit]

An English language translation by Norman Shapiro was published by Scribner in 1975 (ISBN 978-0-684-14240-1). It was republished in mass market paperback format in 1977 by Ace Books (ISBN 978-0-441-09120-1) and Sphere Books (ISBN 978-0-7221-7222-3). John Tanton acquired the rights to the book in 1994 and printed a softcover edition through his publishing company The Social Contract Press (ISBN 978-1-881780-07-6).[12][6][13] The Winter 1994-1995 issue of The Social Contract Journal was a special edition released to coincide with the new printing of the book, each article dedicated to discussion of the book and its themes.[14][12][13]

## Reception

[edit]

### First edition

[edit]

The Camp of the Saints received an initially positive reception in France, including from prominent literary figures, with eight out of ten critics focusing on the "prophetic" nature of the story.[7][15][16] Jean Cau, for example, wrote: "what if Raspail, with “Le Camp des Saints”, was neither a prophet nor a visionary novelist, but simply an implacable historian of our future?"; Henri Amouroux averred: "Oh, my God, I've never seen a prophet in my life - you're the first!".[17] It was praised by journalist Bernard Pivot and intellectuals such as Jean Anouilh, Hervé Bazin, Michel Déon, Thierry Maulnier, and Louis Pauwels.;[15][18] however, two decades later, The Atlantic in the U.S. denied that the book had received a positive reception in France.[2] It has also been widely criticized by both French and English-language commentators for conveying racist themes,[1][2][19][20] xenophobia, nativism, and anti-immigration content.[1][2][7]

After the book was translated into English in 1975, Kirkus Reviews compared the novel to Mein Kampf,[21] while Library Journal said it would "succeed in shocking and challenging the complacent, contemporary mind", and called it a "philosophical dissection of the erosion of Western civilization".[5] A contemporary review from The New York Times called it "avowedly racist" and said the experience of reading the book was "like being trapped at a cocktail party with a normal‐looking fellow who suddenly starts a perfervid racist diatribe".[22] In 1975, Time magazine panned the novel as a "bilious tirade" that only required a response because it "arrives trailing clouds of praise from French savants, including dramatist Jean Anouilh ('A haunting book of irresistible force and calm logic'), with the imprint of a respected U.S. publisher and a teasing pre-publication ad campaign ('The end of the white world is near')".[16]

In 1983, Linda Chavez called the novel "a sickening book", describing it as "racist, xenophobic and paranoid."[23] Jeffrey Hart, in a 1975 National Review article, mocked the rejection of the novel by critics, deriding them as "respectable, comfortable reviewers", and lauded the book in those terms: "in freer and more intelligent circles in Europe, the book is a sensation and Raspail is a prize-winner [...] his plot is both simple and brilliant."[24] Syndicated columnist Garry Wills condemned the embrace of the novel by the "more 'respectable' channels" of American right-wing media, including Jeffrey Hart, drawing parallels between the "racial implications" of the book and the National Review's "overtly racist analysis" of school integration efforts.[25]

In the early 1980s, the director of the French intelligence service SDECE, Alexandre de Marenches, gave a copy of the book to Ronald Reagan, who reportedly stated that he was "terribly impressed" with it.[18] The December 1994 cover story of The Atlantic Monthly focused on the themes of the novel, analyzing them in the context of international relations, while describing it as "the most politically incorrect book in France in the second half of the twentieth century".[2] Its authors, British historian Paul Kennedy and Columbia professor Matthew Connelly further wrote, "many members of the more prosperous economies are beginning to agree with Raspail's vision".[26] Neo-conservative writer Daniel Pipes has cited the work in the context of the "Islamization of the European continent", while Ronald F. Maxwell, who sympathized with the book's themes, considered making a feature film out of the novel.[11]

### Later reception

[edit]

In 2002, columnist Lionel Shriver described the novel as "both prescient and appalling", certainly "racist" but "written with tremendous verbal energy and passion." Shriver writes that the book "gives bilious voice to an emotion whose expression is increasingly taboo in the West, but that can grow only more virulent when suppressed: the fierce resentment felt by majority populations when that status seems threatened."[27]

William F. Buckley, Jr. praised the book in 2004 as "a great novel" that raised questions on how to respond to massive illegal immigration,[28] and in 2014, Mackubin Thomas Owens noted Buckley's praise of it, while remarking that "Raspail was ahead of his time in demonstrating that Western civilization had lost its sense of purpose and history—its 'exceptionalism'."[29] In 2005, the conservative Chilton Williamson praised the book as "one of the most uncompromising works of literary reaction in the 20th century."[30]

In March 2011, the book returned to the bestseller list, ranking in the top five in bookstores in France.[18] It has been favorably referred to by Steve Bannon, U.S. President Donald Trump's former Chief Strategist.[1][31][14][32] It has also been promoted by Trump's former senior policy advisor Stephen Miller,[1][33] GOP Congressman Steve King,[1] French National Rally leader Marine Le Pen[1] and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.[34] A 2001 report from the SPLC described the novel as "the favorite racist fantasy of the anti-immigrant movement in the US".[8]

## See also

[edit]

* List of dystopian literature
* The March, a 1990 movie with a similar plot
* Rivers of Blood speech, a 1968 anti-immigration speech by British politician Enoch Powell
* Submission, a 2015 French novel about a political takeover of France by Islamic fundamentalists
* European migrant crisis

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Peltier, Elian; Kulish, Nicholas (22 November 2019). "A Racist Book's Malign and Lingering Influence". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 22 November 2019. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
2. ^ a b c d e Connelly, Matthew; Kennedy, Paul (December 1994). "Must It Be the Rest Against the West?". The Atlantic Monthly. Boston. ISSN 1072-7825. Retrieved 9 April 2009.
3. ^ a b Jones, Sarah (2 February 2018). "The Notorious Book that Ties the Right to the Far Right". The New Republic. Washington, D.C. ISSN 0028-6583. Archived from the original on 15 May 2020. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
4. ^ Raspail, John (2014). Le Camp des Saints. Social Contract Press. ISBN 978-1-881780-07-6.
5. ^ a b Marr, Virginia W. (15 June 1975). "The Camp of the Saints". Library Journal. Vol. 100, no. 12\. p. 1242\. ISSN 0360-3113.
6. ^ a b c d Jarvis, G. E. (1 October 2021). "Raspail, racism, and migration: Implications for radicalization in a polarizing world". Transcultural Psychiatry. 58 (5): 616–631\. doi:10.1177/1363461520930921. ISSN 1363-4615. PMID 32615914.
7. ^ a b c d Moura, Jean-Marc (1988). "Littérature et idéologie de la migration : "Le camp des Saints" de Jean Raspail". Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales (in French). 4 (3): 115–124\. doi:10.3406/remi.1988.1182. ISSN 0765-0752.
8. ^ a b "Racist Book, Camp of the Saints, Gains in Popularity". Intelligence Report. 21 March 2001. Archived from the original on 12 April 2008. Retrieved 6 April 2008.
9. ^ Polakow-Suransky, Sasha (20 March 2019). "Renaud Camus, les idées derrière les balles de l'attentat de Christchurch" [Renaud Camus, the ideas behind the bullets of the Christchurch attack]. Slate.fr (in French). Retrieved 28 November 2020.
10. ^ Alduy, Cécile (23 April 2017). "The novel that unites Marine Le Pen and Steve Bannon". Politico. Retrieved 30 May 2025.
11. ^ a b Michael, George (21 January 2010). "Blueprints and Fantasies: A Review and Analysis of Extremist Fiction". Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. 33 (2): 149–170\. doi:10.1080/10576100903488451. ISSN 1057-610X.
12. ^ a b Tanton, John (Winter 1994–1995). "The Camp of the Saints Revisited". The Social Contract Journal. 5 (2). Archived from the original on 11 May 2021.
13. ^ a b "Special edition: "The Camp of the Saints Revisited"". The Social Contract Journal. 5 (2). Winter 1994–1995. Archived from the original on 11 May 2021.
14. ^ a b Allen, Ian (30 July 2018). "Inside the World of Racist Science Fiction". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 24 December 2018. Retrieved 25 December 2018.
15. ^ a b Deschodt, Éric (April 1985). "Utopies en noir". Le Spectacle du Monde (in French). Paris. p. 71\. ISSN 0049-5794 - via Google Books. "Le camp des saints finit par obtenir une critique imposante, non pas tant par le volume (demeuré incomparable à celui que provoque le moindre texte d'une vedette de variétés) que par la qualité de ses laudateurs. Ils s'appellent Anouilh, Bazin, Cau, Clavel, Déon, Dutourd, Fourastié, Maulnier, Pauwels..."
16. ^ a b Gray, Paul (4 August 1975). "Poor White Trash". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Archived from the original on 15 August 2007. Retrieved 27 January 2014.
17. ^ De Mériten, Patrice (7 February 2011). "Jean Raspail « Aujourd'hui, "Le Camp des Saints" pourrait être poursuivi en justice pour 87 motifs »" [Jean Raspail: "Today, 'The Camp of the Saints' could be sued on 87 grounds"]. Le Figaro (in French). Paris. ISSN 0182-5852.
18. ^ a b c Dupuis, Jerome (6 April 2011). "Le camp des Saints, de Jean Raspail, un succès de librairie raciste?" [Jean Raspail's The Camp of the Saints, a racist bestseller?]. L'Express (in French). Paris. ISSN 0014-5270. Archived from the original on 28 September 2023. Retrieved 27 January 2014.
19. ^ Blumenthal, Paul; Rieger, J. M. (4 March 2017). "This Stunningly Racist French Novel Is How Steve Bannon Explains The World". HuffPost. Archived from the original on 24 July 2019. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
20. ^ Garcia-Navarro, Lulu (19 November 2019). "Stephen Miller And 'The Camp Of The Saints,' A White Nationalist Reference". NPR. Archived from the original on 23 December 2021. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
21. ^ "The Camp of the Saints". Kirkus Reviews. New York City. 28 July 1975. ISSN 1948-7428. Archived from the original on 5 March 2017. Retrieved 5 March 2017.
22. ^ Lingeman, Richard R. (13 August 1975). "Books of The Times: The Decline of the West". The New York Times. p. 31\. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
23. ^ Crawford, James (1992). Language Loyalties: A Source Book on the Official English Controversy. University of Chicago Press. p. 174\. ISBN 978-0-226-12016-4 - via Google Books.
24. ^ Hart, Jeffrey (26 September 1975). "Raspail's Superb Scandal". National Review. Vol. 27\. New York City. pp. 1062–1063\. ISSN 0028-0038.
25. ^ Wills, Garry (23 October 1975). "'Civilized' Racism — The Worst Kind". The Capital Times. Vol. 117, no. 122\. Madison. p. 32\. ISSN 0749-4068. Retrieved 27 July 2025 - via Newspapers.com.
26. ^ Zolberg, Aristide R. (2006). "Managing a World on the Move". Population and Development Review. 32 (The Political Economy of Global Population Change, 1950–2050): 235. doi:10.1111/j.1728-4457.2006.tb00009.x. ISSN 0098-7921. JSTOR 20058950. "Kennedy and his coauthor evoked an impending apocalypse: "Many members of the more prosperous economies are beginning to agree with Raspail's vision""1950–2050&rft.pages=235&rft.date=2006&rft.issn=0098-7921&rft_id=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20058950#id-name=JSTOR&rft_id=info:doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2006.tb00009.x&rft.aulast=Zolberg&rft.aufirst=Aristide+R.&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikipedia.org:The+Camp+of+the+Saints" class="Z3988">
27. ^ Shriver, Lionel (10 June 2002). "Population doomsday". New Statesman. London. ISSN 1364-7431. Archived from the original on 30 November 2016. Retrieved 1 December 2012.
28. ^ Buckley Jr., William F. (23 July 2004). "No Irish Need Apply". National Review. New York City. ISSN 0028-0038. Archived from the original on 30 April 2007.
29. ^ Owens, Mackubin Thomas (13 June 2014). "What an Off-Putting French Novel Can Tell Us about Immigration". National Review. New York City. ISSN 0028-0038. Archived from the original on 19 July 2017. Retrieved 20 August 2017.
30. ^ Williamson, Chilton (2005). The Conservative Bookshelf: Essential Works That Impact Today's Conservative Thinkers. New York: Citadel Press. p. 279\. ISBN 978-0-8065-2691-1 - via Google Books.
31. ^ Burleigh, Nina (23 March 2017). "The Bannon Canon: Books favored by the Trump adviser". Newsweek. New York City. ISSN 0028-9604. Archived from the original on 14 August 2017. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
32. ^ Posner, Sarah (2020). Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump. New York: Random House. pp. 80–81, 140. ISBN 978-1-984820-42-6.
33. ^ Fears, Danika (12 November 2019). "Stephen Miller Pushed Racist Stories to Breitbart, Leaked Emails Show". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on 12 November 2019. Retrieved 12 November 2019. "Throughout their correspondence, Miller promoted racist ideas, sending her links from the white-nationalist website VDARE and recommending The Camp of the Saints, a French novel popular among neo-Nazis for its perpetuation of the "white genocide" myth."
34. ^ Ganz, John (4 August 2022). "Viktor Orbán's American apologists". New Statesman. London. ISSN 1364-7431. Archived from the original on 4 August 2022. Retrieved 5 August 2022.

## External links

[edit]

* The Camp of the Saints at Open Library (the 1975 English translation published by Charles Scribner’s Sons)
* Le camp des saints title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

* v
* t
* e

Works by Jean Raspail

Novels|

* Welcome, Honourable Visitors
* The Camp of the Saints
* Le Jeu du Roi
* Moi, Antoine de Tounens, roi de Patagonie
* Who Will Remember the People...
* Blue Island
* Sire
* Sept cavaliers
* L'Anneau du pêcheur
* Le Roi au-delà de la mer
* Les Royaumes de Borée

Non-fiction|

* Adiós, Tierra del Fuego
* En canot sur les chemins d'eau du Roi

Authority control databases

International|

* VIAF
* 2
* 3

National|

* United States
* France
* BnF data
* Poland

*[OCLC]: Online Computer Library Center number
*[LC Class]: Library of Congress Classification
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*[e]: Edit this template