ABSTRACT
In the late 1990s, the prospect of computer operating systems crashing when the calendar switched over to 2000, also known as the Y2K bug, produced global panic and complete media frenzy. The likelihood of electrical power outages and other disruptions in the distribution of common public utilities generated bizarre fantasies, many of which were fed by religious and millenarian views. It was as if the predicted confusion between the years 1900 and 2000 by computer systems would send humanity back in time instead of moving forward. Survival became a common preoccupation. People stockpiled food, water, gas-powered generators, and even guns to prepare for the chaos of the apocalypse. In France, the extreme right exploited these kinds of archaic anxieties and basic insecurities brought to the surface by the long-awaited passage into the new millennium. They rallied around Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front party and created a climate of fear and hatred toward immigrants who were depicted not only as the Other, but also as a threat to national identity and France’s future. The fantasies triggered by the Y2K bug thus reflected broader racial tensions.
