London:
British authorities have barred a far-right French writer from visiting the UK, his publisher told AFP on Friday.
Renaud Camus was set to give a speech at a hard-right political party event in Britain next week, but officials turned down his request for a travel permit, his English-language publisher Vauban Books said.
The publisher said the UK’s interior ministry told Camus his presence in the UK was not considered “conducive to the public good”, though the ministry has not commented.
Camus is known for his 2011 book “The Great Replacement” and its conspiratorial argument that white Europeans are being deliberately supplanted by non-white immigrants.
The idea has inspired extreme-right figures like the Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 Muslim worshippers in attacks on two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch in 2019.
On Thursday, Camus said on X that his application for an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) had been rejected.
“I have just been notified that I am banned from entering the United Kingdom, where I was due to give a speech next week,” he posted.
His publisher told AFP on Friday that “Camus has indeed been barred from entering the UK, where he was scheduled to address an event by the Homeland Party”.
It shared what it said was a message from an interior ministry department rejecting Camus’s ETA application, which said his “presence in the UK is not considered to be conducive to the public good”.
The message said that Camus must now apply for a visa if he wishes to travel to the UK, and that the rejection of his ETA did not necessarily mean a visa would be turned down.
The publisher said the decision on the travel permit would also prevent Camus from accepting an invitation to speak at the Oxford Union debating society later this spring.
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