Forty years after publishing his prophetic dystopia Jean Raspail is still with us, ever more resigned that our civilization is on the “road to disappearance.” As he explained in an interview published in Valeurs Actuelles on October 25 (transl. by ST), he has no desire to join the big circle of intellectuals who spend their time debating immigration because, in his view, such talk is useless:

The people already intuitively know that France, as our ancestors shaped her over the centuries, is on the road to disappearance. The audience is being kept amused by endless talk about immigration, but the final truth is never stated. Furthermore, that truth is unsayable, as my friend Jean Cau had noted, because whoever says it is immediately hounded, condemned, and then rejected. Richard Millet came close to that truth, and just look what happened to him!

(Prolific French author Richard Millet caused a scandal August 2012 by publishing a pamphlet, “In Literary Praise of Anders Breivik,” in which he argued that the mass killer was the product of an ideological-racial divide caused by immigration from outside Europe, and that Norway “deserved” him. To Millet, “what one calls literature” is no longer anything but “the hedonistic face of a nihilism of which anti-racism is the terrorist branch,” with most contemporary writers acting as its “henchmen” and “sycophants.” Millet had to step down as editor with France’s top publisher Gallimard following an outcry over his publication. It was branded “a fascist pamphlet that is a disgrace to literature” in an open letter to Le Monde signed by 120 writers.).

Raspail is particularly upset by the conspiracy of silence which is all-pervasive among the elite, starting with politicians. They pretend in public that all is well, but behind closed doors acknowledge the existence of the problem of immigration and identity:

On that subject I have several revealing letters from leading politicians on the Left, as well as those on the Right, to whom I sent the Camp of the Saints. “But you understand: it cannot be said…” Those people have a double language, a double conscience. I do not know how they do it! The trouble is, the people know that things are being hidden from them. Tens of millions of people today do not subscribe to the official discourse on immigration. They do not believe that it is “an opportunity for France.” Reality keeps imposing itself on them, on a daily basis.

Raspail is adamant that assimilation of immigrants is not possible, that the model of integration is unworkable. Even if a few more illegal immigrants are expelled and a few more foreigners are integrated, says he, the overall numbers will go on growing—and nothing will change in the fundamental problem: the progressive invasion of France and Europe by countless Third World multitudes.

I am not a prophet, but you see clearly the fragility of these countries, where unbearable poverty grows ceaselessly alongside indecent wealth. Those people do not turn to their governments to protest because they expect nothing of those governments. They turn to us and arrive in Europe in boats, in ever larger numbers, today in Lampedusa, tomorrow elsewhere. Nothing deters them. Thanks to the demographic curve, by the 2050s the number of young indigenous French will equal that of young foreigners in France. Many will be naturalized, which does not mean that they will have become French. I am not saying they are bad people, but “naturalizations on paper” are not naturalizations of the heart. I cannot consider them my compatriots. We need to drastically toughen the law, as a matter of urgency.

There are only two ways to deal with immigrants, Raspail says. “Either we accommodate them, and France—her culture, her civilization—will be eradicated without so much as a funeral. In my view, that is what is going to happen. Or we do not accommodate them at all, which means we stop sanctifying the Other and rediscover our neighbors.”

This would mean that we eventually cease paying heed to those “Christian ideas gone mad,” as Chesterton called them, or to those depraved human rights, and that we take the indispensable measures to protect ourselves collectively, without appeal, to avoid the dissolution of our country into a general race-blending mélange. I see no other solution. I travelled a lot in my youth. All peoples are fascinating, but when you mix them too much, animosity becomes far more prevalent than sympathy. Métissage is never peaceful. It is a dangerous utopia. Just look at South Africa!

Raspail accepts that “at the point where we are now,” those necessary measures would inevitably be “very coercive.” He does not believe this will happen, however, and doesn’t see anyone who has the courage and the “balance of the soul” to do what is needed. “The supporters of immigration are not more charitable than I,” Raspail insists. “There probably isn’t a single one who intends to welcome one of these unfortunates into his home,” but what we have is “an emotional pretense, an irresponsible maelstrom that will swallow us.”

In his view, there may be a temporary alternative to the choice between submission and coercion, and that is the establishment of compact indigenous communities. The flight of the French from majority immigrant areas, as well as the mass protests against homosexual marriage legislation, herald a new form of communitarianism and indicate that millions of French people will resist the “change of civilizations” promised by the Left. Rival communitarianisms will be reinforced by mutual animosity, which will end in extremely severe confrontations.

Raspail does not believe in a sudden and unexpected revival. “It would require an epic spirit, an appreciation of a sublime destiny… It would require people to still believe in their country. I don’t see many of them left.” The revival would require a thorough reform of state education and the media, to deny any platform to the teachers and journalists who are serving the enemy:

We have removed the sacred from the idea of the nation, the exercise of power, the past of the country. We have created cracks in the statue of France, we have disfigured it (especially the Left!) to the point where nothing inspires respect any more. The power of the false ideas disseminated by the state education system and the media is boundless. But as for me, I have lived in France for 1500 years, I am content with what is mine, and I have no desire for that to change…