Anyons are 2D or 1D quantum particles with intermediate statistics, interpolating between bosons and fermions. We study the ground state of a large number N of 2D anyons, in a scaling limit where the statistics parameter is proportional to the inverse of N. This means that the statistics is seen as a "perturbation from the bosonic end." We model this situation in the magnetic gauge picture by bosons interacting through long-range magnetic potentials. We assume that these effective statistical gauge potentials are generated by magnetic charges carried by each particle, smeared over discs of radius R (extended anyons). Our method allows to take R to 0 not too fast at the same time as N to infinity. In this limit we rigorously justify the so-c...