The Camp of the Saints

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The Camp of the Saints (Le Camp des Saints) is a 1973

French novel by author and explorer Jean Raspail. The novel The Camp of the Saints
depicts a setting wherein Third World mass immigration to
France and the West leads to the destruction of Western
civilization. Almost forty years after its initial publication,
the novel returned to the bestseller list in 2011.[1]

Contents
1 Inspiration
2 Plot
3 Publication
4 Response
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Cover of the first edition

Inspiration Author Jean Raspail
Original title Le Camp des Saints
Raspail has said his inspiration came while at the French
Riviera in 1971, as he was looking out at the Mediterranean. Translator Norman Shapiro
Country France
What if they were to come? I did not know who Language French
"they" were, but it seemed inevitable to me that Publisher ditions Robert Laffont
the numberless disinherited people of the South
would, like a tidal wave, set sail one day for this Publication date 1973
opulent shore, our fortunate countrys wide- Published in 1975
gaping frontier."[2] English
Media type Print (Hardback &
Paperback)
The name of the book comes from Book of Revelation, the
Biblical end of the age: ISBN 0-684-14240-6
OCLC 1174645

In number they are like the sand on the seashore. Dewey Decimal 843/.9/14
They marched across the breadth of the earth LC Class PZ4.R227 Cam
and surrounded the camp of the saints, the city PQ2635.A379
He loves. But fire came down from heaven and
devoured them.[3]

Plot
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 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 some passengers publicly
fornicating. As the ships pass "the straits of Ceylon", helicopters swarm overhead, capturing images of the
refugees 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 refugees 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 forces fire a warning shot, causing the fleet to steer south,
around the Cape of Good Hope. To the surprise of observers, the apartheid government 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
government. Western leaders, confident the refugees will accept supplies from their "more virtuous" nations,
organize a supply mission, funded by governments, charities and major churches, to meet the refugees off So
Tom. However, the fleet doesn't stop for these barges either, and when a worker from the Papal barge attempts
to board one of the ships, he is strangled and thrown overboard. The press attempts to contain coverage of the
disaster.

When the migrants pass through the Strait of Gibraltar, the President orders troops to the south and addresses
the nation of his plan to repel the migrants. However, in the middle of the address, he breaks down, demands
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 Calgus, 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 remains the last defense
against the immigrants.

The migrants 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. They are also joined by the immigrants who already reside in the 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. The
village containing the troops is bombed flat by airplanes of the new French government, referred to only as the
"Paris Multiracial Commune". In a few years, most Western governments have surrendered. The mayor of New
York City is made to share Gracie Mansion with three families from Harlem, the Queen of the United Kingdom
must agree to have her son marry a Pakistani woman, and only one drunken Soviet soldier stands in the way of
thousands of Chinese peasants as they flee into 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, and
the 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.
Publication
A translation by Norman Shapiro was published by Scribner in 1975 (ISBN 0-684-14240-6). It was republished
in mass market paperback format by Ace Books in 1977 (ISBN 0-441-09120-2), and in softcover format by
The Social Contract Press in 1995 (ISBN 1-881780-07-4); The Washington Post reports that reading the novel
"focused" the ideas of John Tanton, Social Contract Press' founder.[4]

Response
The book was a success in France, praised by right wing intellectuals such as Michel Don, Jean Cau and Louis
Pauwels.[5] After it was translated to English, Max Lerner said that it had "irresistible pace of skill and
narrative", while Sidney Hook said that it would "succeed in shocking and challenging the complacent
contemporary mind".[6] 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')".[7] Kirkus Reviews compared the novel to
Mein Kampf,[8] while Jeffrey Hart in the National Review lauded it, stating "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".[9] In
1983, Linda Chavez called the novel "a sickening book", describing it as "racist, xenophobic and paranoid".[10]
The December 1994 cover story of The Atlantic Monthly focused on the themes of the novel, analyzing them in
the context of international relations.[11] (This was at about the same time that The Social Contract Press chose
to bring it back into U.S. publication).[12]

In 2002, 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."[13]

William F. Buckley, Jr. praised the book in 2004 as "a great novel" that raised questions on how to respond to
massive illegal immigration.[14] In 2005 the conservative Chilton Williamson praised the book as "one of the
most uncompromising works of literary reaction in the 20th century."[15] In 2001 the Southern Poverty Law
Center described it as "widely revered by American white supremacists and is a sort of anti-immigration analog
to The Turner Diaries,"[16] and as recently as October 2015 condemned the novel as "the favorite racist fantasy
of the anti-immigrant movement in the US."[17]

The book returned to the bestseller list in 2011,[1] and beginning in 2015 has been frequently referred to by
Steve Bannon, former chairman of Breitbart News and current White House chief strategist to U.S. President
Donald Trump.[18]

See also
The March, a 1990 movie with a similar plot.
The Turner Diaries, a 1978 novel.

References

1. L'Express: "Le camp des Saints, de Jean Raspail, un succs de librairie raciste?"
(http://www.lexpress.fr/culture/livre/le-
camp-des-saints-de-jean-raspail-un-succes-de-librairie-raciste_980039.html) , 6 April 2011, retrieved 30 November 2012
 2. Raspail, John. Le Camp des Saints (dition 2011). ISBN 978-1881780076.
3. "Revelation 20, King James Version (KJV)" (https://www.bible.com/bible/1/rev.20). www.bible.com. Retrieved
2017-03-07.
4. Huslin, Anita. "On Immigration, A Theorist Who's No Fence-Sitter"(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/a
rticle/2006/11/25/AR2006112500897_pf.html). The Washington Post. Retrieved 2010-05-25.
5. Dupuis, Jerome. Le camp des Saints, de Jean Raspail, un succs de librairie raciste? (http://www.lexpress.fr/culture/livr
e/le-camp-des-saints-de-jean-raspail-un-succes-de-librairie-raciste_980039.html) (in French). L'Express.
6. Publishers Weekly (https://books.google.com/books?id=EcBEAQAAIAAJ) . R. R. Bowker Company.
7. Paul Gray (1975-08-04)."Poor White Trash" (https://web.archive.org/web/20070815090521/http://www.time.com/time/
magazine/article/0,9171,913401,00.html).Time. Archived from the original (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/articl
e/0,9171,913401,00.html)on August 15, 2007. Retrieved 2014-01-27.
8. The Camp of the Saints(https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jean-raspail-2/the-camp-of-the-saints/) , reviewed
in Kirkus Reviews, published July 28, 1975; retrieved from Kirkus Online, March 5, 2017
9. Jeffrey Hart, National Review, September 26, 1975.
10. Crawford, James (1992).Language Loyalties: A Source Book on the Official English Controversy (https://books.google.
co.uk/books?id=wLoJ31HXl40C&lpg=P A174&dq=%22racist%2C%20xenophobic%20and %20paranoid%22%20Lind
a%20Chavez&pg=PA174#v=onepage&q=%22racist,%20xenophobic%20and%20paranoid% 22%20Linda%20Chavez&f
=true). University of Chicago Press. p. 174.ISBN 0226120163.
11. Matthew Connelly and Paul Kennedy (December 1994)."Must It Be the Rest Against the West?" (https://www.theatlanti
c.com/past/politics/immigrat/kennf.htm). Atlantic Monthly. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
12. John Tanton. "The Puppeteer Replies - The Social Contract Press"(http://www.thesocialcontract.com/answering_our_cri
tics/puppeteer.html#camp). The Social Contract Press. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
13. Lionel Shriver: "Population doomsday"(http://www.newstatesman.com/node/190781), New Statesman, 10 June 2002,
retrieved 1 December 2012
14. Buckley, Jr., William F. "No Irish Need Apply(https://web.archive.org/web/20070430112736/http://www.nationalrevie
w.com/script/printpage.p?ref=/buckley/wfb200407231332.asp) ." National Review Online. July 23, 2004.
15. Williamson, Chilton (2005).The Conservative Bookshelf: Essential W orks That Impact Today's Conservative Thinkers
(https://books.google.com/books?id=RIq6-S9cfMQC&pg=P A279). Citadel Press. p. 279.ISBN 0-8065-2691-2.
16. Racist Book, Camp of the Saints, Gains in Popularity(https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2015/r
acist-book-camp-saints-gains-popularity),Intelligence Report, March 21, 2001
17. SPLCenter.org: Fear and Fantasy (http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=172)
18. Blumenthal, Paul (2017-03-04)."This Stunningly Racist French Novel Is How Steve Bannon Explains The W orld: The
Camp of the Saints tells a grotesque tale about a migrant invasion to destroy eWstern civilization." (http://www.huffingt
onpost.com/entry/steve-bannon-camp-of-the-saints-immigration_us_58b75206e4b0284854b3dc03) . The Huffington
Post.

External links
Le camp des saints title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Camp_of_the_Saints&oldid=786407677"

Categories: 1973 novels 20th-century French novels Apocalyptic novels ditions Robert Laffont books
French science fiction novels Novels by Jean Raspail Novels set in Provence Utopian fiction
Works about illegal immigration to Europe

This page was last edited on 19 June 2017, at 08:27.

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