Renaud Camus, writer, painter, photographer, was born in 1946. He is now the author of more than one hundred and sixty works. His works are marked by the question of meaning and the fight against the industrialisation of man and the massacre of landscapes.

In this episode of Thinking Class, John Gillam and essayist Renaud Camus engage in a wide-ranging conversation about what Camus has long described as “the disaster” — the civilisational, cultural, and demographic transformations reshaping France, Britain, and much of the Western world.

Camus is widely known in public debate for his writings on demographic change in Europe, often discussed superficially or polemically as "The Great Replacement". In this conversation, we move beyond caricature to engage his work on its own terms: as an attempt to diagnose what has changed within Western leadership classes, cultural memory, and moral language — and why these changes have proven so destabilising.

Topics discussed include:

• What Camus means by “the disaster” and why he sees it as civilisational rather than conspiratorial
• The role of political, media, and bureaucratic elites — whom Camus calls the “friends of the disaster” — in enabling demographic and cultural rupture
• Responsibility, narrative control, and why discussion of consequences is often displaced by moral abstraction
• Britain and France in comparative perspective, including demographic trends, historical memory, and elite ideology
• The prohibition on speaking of ancestry, roots, and continuity — and what is lost when a people forgets its own past
• Globalism, social engineering, and the moralisation of ideology
• Ecological objections to simplistic “solutions,” including unchecked population growth
• Why Camus rejects violence and insists on lawful, civic, and cultural means of resistance
• His reflections on monarchy, national form, and the endurance of peoples
• Christian hope, recovery, and the possibility that nations can outlast periods of profound disfigurement

The conversation concludes, as always on Thinking Class, with a personal reflection: what Renaud Camus has changed his mind about during the course of his life and what led him to think differently.

• Follow Renaud Camus on X
• Visit Renaud Camus' website
• Buy Renaud Camus' books

About Thinking Class:
Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast exploring the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world.

Hosted by John Gillam, the show features serious conversations with historians, academics, and independent thinkers.

Thinking Class is concerned with discovering long-term patterns over headlines and hot-takes. Expect historically-grounded analysis on matters of national character, institutions, demography, belief, and political legitimacy.

New episodes every week.

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🐦 Follow on X

William Clouston is the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the United Kingdom and a member of the advisory board for Restore Britain.

In this conversation, William Clouston and I think out loud about the current state of British politics, focusing on the disconnect between government promises and actual governance. We explore:

• The need for a cultural and civilisational vision beyond economics
• The challenges posed by mass immigration for social democracy and defining remigration
• The importance of governing in the national interest and what the national interest is
• Whether Western European nations will be forced into ending mass immigration by the United States' National Security Strategy 2025
• Lessons William Clouston has learned since entering politics

Follow William Clouston on X here.

You can watch and listen to my first conversation with William here:

• Watch: How Britain Began To Decline & Why Its Leaders Won't Fix It
• Listen: How Britain Began To Decline & Why Its Leaders Won't Fix It

About Thinking Class:
Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast exploring the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world.

Hosted by John Gillam, the show features serious conversations with historians, academics, and independent thinkers.

Thinking Class is concerned with discovering long-term patterns over headlines and hot-takes. Expect historically-grounded analysis on matters of national character, institutions, demography, belief, and political legitimacy.

New episodes every week.

▶️ Subscribe on YouTube
🎧 Follow on Spotify
📰 Read on Substack
🐦 Follow on X

Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics at The University of Buckingham and Director of the Centre for Heterodox Social Science. He directs Buckingham’s new MA in the Politics of Cultural Conflict and PhD in Cultural Politics as well as its open online course on Woke: the Origins, Dynamics and Implications of an Elite Ideology. He is the author of Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Produced a Cultural Revolution, Whiteshift: Immigration, Populism and the Future of White Majorities, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth, The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America, The Orange Order and one other book. He is co-editor, among others, of Political Demographyand editor of Rethinking Ethnicity: Majority Groups and Dominant Minorities. In addition to 45 peer-reviewed articles, he has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, National Review, New Statesman, Financial Times, UnHerd and other outlets.

Dr Paul Morland is an author and broadcaster who writes and speaks about population and the big demographic trends across the world, both contemporary and historic. Described as the ‘UK’s leading demographer’ and ‘one of the world’s pre-eminent demographers’ (Mercator), Paul has written four books: No One Left, Tomorrow’s People, The Human Tide and Demographic Engineering and his work has been translated into nine languages. He has written for and been interviewed in many of the world’s leading newspapers and magazines including the Financial Times, the Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The Toronto Globe and Mail, Der Spiegel and the Jerusalem Post. He has broadcast on many outlets including BBC Radio 4.

In this episode, Eric, Paul and I think out loud about the significant demographic changes occurring in the UK, particularly the decline of the white British population, which is due to become a minority in the country by the 2060s. We explore:

• the implications of these shifts on society, politics, and culture.
• theories of ethnic conflict and what the future might hold for the United Kingdom
• the roles of assimilation and intermarriage
• the impact of DEI policies and woke culture on social trust
• the future of political ethnicity and nationalism
• the potential for remigration,
• the cultural shifts necessary for societal cohesion, and much much more.

Dr Paul Morland:

• Follow Paul on X
• Buy Paul's books
• Visit Paul's website

Watch my other conversations with Paul here: 'Forget Politics, Make Babies' and 'Why Rediscovering Our Cultural Heritage Can Save The West'

Professor Eric Kaufmann:

• Follow Eric on X
• Buy Eric's books
• Subscribe to Eric's Substack
• Visit his website

Watch my other conversation with Eric here: 'Resisting Woke Taboos Will Restore Cultural Flourishing'

About Thinking Class:
Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast exploring the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world.

Hosted by John Gillam, the show fe