Conquer Club

...In a nutshell, Zemmour says France is in decline because its traditional values — nation, family — have been destroyed over the past 40 years and replaced by a feminist, pro-gay, egalitarian agenda imposed on the country by left-wing elites. And, he says, the country has been undermined by successive waves of Muslim immigration.

"France today is suffering from a spiritual and an identity crisis," he tells NPR. "Plus we've been subjected to massive immigration — Muslims who reject our culture. So the French feel overwhelmed and they don't recognize themselves or their country anymore" ...

...Of all Zemmour's theories, the one that's rattled people the most is his view of France's World War II collaborationist government in Vichy. Zemmour, who is Jewish, argues that by first deporting foreign Jews to Germany's death camps, Vichy actually helped save French Jews. That assertion has provoked a firestorm of criticism from people who say it was ordinary French citizens who saved Jews, not Vichy.

Zemmour's claim revolves around the seminal 1970s work of American historian Robert Paxton, whose study of Vichy helped France come to terms with its wartime past. Zemmour says Paxton's thesis that Vichy was all-guilty is wrong because the regime wasn't so black and white.

"I felt compelled to include this in the book," he says, "because guilt over Vichy lies at the very heart of French self-loathing, even today. ... Every time we want to send illegal immigrants back, the elites scream that it smacks of Vichy. If we encourage foreigners to assimilate, we're accused of colonialism and Vichy. It always comes back to Vichy" ...