TheGreat Replacement (French:grand remplacement), also known asreplacement theory orgreat replacement theory,[1][2][3] is a debunked[4][5]white nationalist[6]far-rightconspiracy theory[3][7][8][9] coined by French authorRenaud Camus. Camus's theory states that, with the complicity or cooperation of "replacist" elites,[a][7][10] the ethnic French and white European populations at large are being demographically and culturally replaced by non-white peoples—especiallyfrom Muslim-majority countries—through mass migration, demographic growth and a drop in the birth rate of white Europeans.[7][11][12] Since then, similar claims have been advanced in other national contexts,notably in the United States.[13] Mainstream scholars have dismissed these claims of a conspiracy of "replacist" elites as rooted in a misunderstanding of demographic statistics and premised upon an unscientific, racist worldview.[14][15][16]
While similar themes have characterized various far-right theories since the late 19th century, the particular term was popularized by Camus in his 2011 bookLe Grand Remplacement. The book associates the presence ofMuslims in France with danger and destruction ofFrench culture and civilization. Camus and other conspiracy theorists attribute recent demographic changes in Europe to intentional policies advanced by global and liberal elites (the "replacists") from within theGovernment of France, theEuropean Union, or theUnited Nations; they describe it as a "genocide by substitution".[7]
The conspiracy theory found support in Europe, and has also grown popular among anti-migrant and white nationalist movements from other parts of theWest; many of their adherents maintain that "immigrants [are] flocking to predominantly white countries for the precise purpose of rendering the white population a minority within their own land or even causing the extinction of the native population".[12] It aligns with (and is a part of) the largerwhite genocide conspiracy theory[b][12] except in the substitution ofantisemitic tropes withIslamophobia.[18][17][19] This substitution, along with a use of simple catch-all slogans, has been cited as one of the reasons for its broader appeal in a pan-European context,[18][20][21] although the concept remains rooted in antisemitism in many white nationalist movements, especially (but not exclusively) in the United States.[22][23]
Although Camus has publicly condemned white nationalist violence,[24][25] scholars have argued that calls to violence are implicit in his depiction of non-white migrants as an existential threat to white populations.[21][26] Several far-right terrorists, including the perpetrators of the2019 Christchurch mosque shootings, the2019 El Paso shooting, the2022 Buffalo shooting and the2023 Jacksonville shooting, have made reference to the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory. American conservative media personalities, includingCharlie Kirk,Tucker Carlson andLaura Ingraham, have espoused ideas of a replacement.[3]
Renaud Camus developed his conspiracy theory in two books published in 2010 and 2011, in the context of an increase in anti-immigrant rhetoric in public discourse during the previous decade.[27] Europe also experienced an escalation inIslamic terrorist attacks during the 2000s–2010s,[28] and amigrant crisis in the years 2015–2016,[29] which exacerbated tensions and prepared public opinion for the reception of Camus's conspiracy theory.[30][10] As the latter depicts a population replacement said to occur in a short time lapse of one or two generations, the migrant crisis was particularly conducive to the spread of Camus's ideas while the terrorist attacks accelerated the construction of immigrants as an existential threat among those who shared such a worldview.[10]
Camus's theme of a future demise of European culture and civilization also parallels a "cultural pessimistic" andanti-Islam trend among European intellectuals of the period, illustrated in several best-selling and straightforwardly titled books released during the 2010s:Thilo Sarrazin'sGermany Abolishes Itself (2010),Éric Zemmour'sThe French Suicide (2014) orMichel Houellebecq'sSubmission (2015).[31]
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The "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory was developed by French authorRenaud Camus, initially in a 2010 book titledL'Abécédaire de l'in-nocence ("Abecedarium of no-harm"),[c][34] and the following year in an eponymous book,Le Grand Remplacement (introduction au remplacisme global).[d] Camus has claimed that the nameGrand Remplacement "came to [him], almost by chance, perhaps in a more or less unconscious reference to theGrand Dérangement of theAcadians in the 18th century."[35] As an epigraph to the later book, Camus choseBertolt Brecht's quip from the satirical poemDie Lösung that the easiest thing to do for a government which had lost the confidence of its people would be to choose new people.[36]
According to Camus, the "Great Replacement" has been nourished by "industrialisation", "despiritualisation" and "deculturation";[e][37][38] thematerialistic society andglobalism having created a "replaceable human, without any national, ethnic, or cultural specificity",[39] what he labels "global replacism".[40] Camus claims that "the great replacement does not need a definition," as the term is not, in his views, a "concept" but rather a "phenomenon".[41][20]
In Camus's theory, the indigenous French people ("the replaced")[f] is described as being demographically replaced by non-white populations ("the replacing [peoples]")[g]—mainly coming fromAfrica or theMiddle East—in a process of "peopling immigration" encouraged by a "replacist power".[a][7][42]
Camus frequently uses terms and concepts related to the period ofNazi-occupied France (1940–1945). He for instance labels "colonizers" or "Occupiers"[h] people of non-European descent who reside in Europe,[24][43] and dismisses what he calls the "replacist elites" as "collaborationist".[26] In 2017 Camus founded an organization named theNational Council of European Resistance, in a self-evident reference to theWorld War IINational Council of the Resistance (1943–1945).[44] This analogy to theFrench Resistance against Nazism has been described as an implicit call to hatred, direct action or even violence against what Camus labels the "Occupiers; i.e. the immigrants".[26] Camus has also compared the Great Replacement and the so-called "genocide by substitution" of the European peoples tothe Holocaust.[44]
Camus cites two influential figures in the epilogue of his 2011 bookThe Great Replacement: British politicianEnoch Powell's apocalyptic vision of future race relations—expressed in his 1968"Rivers of Blood" speech—and French authorJean Raspail's depiction of the collapse of the West from an overwhelming "tidal wave" ofThird World immigration, featured in his 1973 novelThe Camp of the Saints.[18][45]
Camus also declared toThe Spectator magazine in 2016 that a key to understanding the "Great Replacement" can be found in his 2002 bookDu Sens.[46] In the latter he wrote that the words "France" and "French" equal a natural and physical reality rather than a legal one, in acratylism similar toCharles Maurras's distinction between the "legal" and the "real country".[i][47] During the same interview, Camus mentioned that he began to imagine his conspiracy theory back in 1996, while editing a guidebook on thedepartment ofHérault, in the South of France: "I suddenly realized that in very old villages [...] the population had totally changed too [...] this is when I began to write like that."[46]
Despite its own singularities and concepts, the "Great Replacement" is encompassed in a larger and older"white genocide" conspiracy theory,[48] popularized in the US by neo-NaziDavid Lane in his 1995White Genocide Manifesto, where he asserted that governments inWestern countries were intending to turnwhite people into "extinct species".[49][50] Scholars generally agree that, although he did not father the theme, Camus indeed coined the term "Great Replacement" as a slogan and concept, and eventually led it to its fame in the 2010s.[51][52]
The idea of "replacement" under the guidance of a hostile elite can be further traced back to pre-WWIIantisemitic conspiracy theories which posited the existence of a Jewish plot to destroy Europe through miscegenation, especially inÉdouard Drumont'santisemitic bestsellerLa France juive (1886).[53] Commenting on this resemblance, historianNicolas Lebourg and political scientistJean-Yves Camus suggest that Renaud Camus's contribution was to replace the antisemitic elements with a clash of civilizations between Muslims and Europeans.[18] Also in the late 19th century, imperialist politicians invoked thePéril jaune (Yellow Peril) in their negative comparisons of France's low birth-rate and the high birth-rates of Asian countries. From that claim arose an artificial, cultural fear that immigrant-worker Asians soon would "flood" France. This danger supposedly could be successfully countered only by increased fecundity of French women. Then, France would possess enough soldiers to thwart the eventual flood of immigrants from Asia.[54]Maurice Barrès's nationalist writings of that period have also been noted in the ideological genealogy of the "Great Replacement", Barrès contending both in 1889 and in 1900 that a replacement of the native population under the combined effect of immigration and a decline in the birth rate was happening in France.[55][53]
Scholars also highlight a modern similarity to European neo-fascist and neo-Nazi thinkers from the immediate post-war, especiallyMaurice Bardèche,René Binet andGaston-Armand Amaudruz,[56][57] and to concepts advanced from the 1960s onward by the FrenchNouvelle Droite.[36][58] The associated and more recent conspiracy theory of "Eurabia", published by British authorBat Ye'or in her 2005 eponymous book, is often cited as a probable inspiration for Camus's "Great Replacement".[59][60][61] Eurabia theory likewise involvesglobalist entities, that are led by both French and Arab powers, conspiring to Islamize Europe, with Muslims submerging the continent through immigration and higher birth rates.[62] Eurabia depicts immigrants as invaders or as afifth column, invited to the continent by a corrupt political elite.[63][64]
While the ethnic demography of France has shiftedas a result of post-WWII immigration, scholars have generally dismissed the claims of a "great replacement" as being rooted in an exaggeration of immigration statistics and unscientific, racially prejudiced views.[14] Geographer Landis MacKellar criticized Camus's thesis for assuming "that third- and fourth- generation 'immigrants' are somehow not French."[65] Researchers have variously estimated the Muslim population of France at between 8.8% and 12.5% in 2017, and less than 1% in 2001,[66][67] making a "replacement" unlikely according to MacKellar.[65]
In the words of scholar Andrew Fergus Wilson, whereas the islamophobic Great Replacement theory can be distinguished from the parallel antisemiticwhite genocide conspiracy theory, "they share the same terms of reference and both are ideologically aligned with the so-called '14 words' ofDavid Lane ["We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children"]."[19] In 2021, theAnti-Defamation League wrote that "since many white supremacists, particularly those in the United States, blame Jews for non-white immigration to the U.S.", the Great Replacement theory has been increasingly associated with antisemitism and conflated with the white genocide conspiracy theory.[22][68] ScholarKathleen Belew has argued that the Great Replacement theory "allows an opportunism in selecting enemies", but "also follows the central motivating logic, which is to protect the thing on the inside [i.e. the preservation and birth rate of the white race], regardless of the enemy on the outside."[69]
According to Australian historianA. Dirk Moses, the great replacement theory is a form ofpsychological projection in which Europeans—who enactedsettler-colonial projects entailing the elimination and replacement of native populations bysettler societies—fear the reverse may happen to them.[70]
In German discourse, Austrian political scientistRainer Bauböck questioned the conspiracy theorists' use of the terms "population replacement" or "exchange" (Bevölkerungsaustausch). UsingRuth Wodak's analysis that the slogan needs to be viewed in its historical context, Bauböck has concluded that the conspiracy theory is a reemergence of the Nazi ideology ofUmvolkung ("ethnicity inversion").[71]
The simplicity and use of catch-all slogans in Camus's formulations—"you have one people, and in the space of a generation you have a different people"[20]—as well as his removal of antisemitism from the original neo-Nazi "white genocide" conspiracy theory, have been cited as conducive to the popularity of the "Great Replacement" in Europe.[21][18]
In a survey led byIfop in December 2018, 25% of the French subscribed to the conspiracy theory; as well as 46% of the responders who defined themselves as "Gilets Jaunes" (Yellow Vest protesters).[72] In another survey led byHarris Interactive in October 2021, 61% of the French believed that the "Great Replacement" will happen in France; 67% of the respondents were worried about it.[73]
The theory has also become influential in far-right and white nationalist circles outside of France.[74] The conspiracy theory has been cited by Canadian far-right political activistLauren Southern in a YouTube video of the same name released in July 2017.[20] Southern's video had attracted in 2020 more than 686,000 views[75] and is credited with helping to popularize the conspiracy theory.[76]Counter-jihadNorwegian bloggerFjordman has also participated in spreading the theory.[77] It has also been promoted by the German edition ofThe Epoch Times, a far-rightFalun Gong-associated newspaper.[78][79]
Prominent right-wing extremist websites such asGates of Vienna,Politically Incorrect, andFdesouche [fr] have provided a platform for bloggers to diffuse and popularize the theory of the "Great Replacement".[80] Among its main promoters are also a wide-ranging network of loosely connected white nationalist movements, especially theIdentitarian movement inEurope,[81][82] and other groups likePEGIDA inGermany.[83]
Much of the European spread of the Great Replacement (French:Grand Remplacement) conspiracy theory rhetoric is due to its prevalence in French national discourse and media.Nationalistright-wing groups in France have asserted that there is an ongoing "Islamo-substitution" of theindigenous French population, associating the presence ofMuslims in France with potential danger and destruction ofFrench culture and civilization.[84][11][85]
In 2011,Marine Le Pen evoked the theory, claiming that France's "adversaries" were waging a moral and economic war on the country, apparently "to deliver it to submersion by an organized replacement of our population".[86] In 2013, historianDominique Venner's suicide inNotre-Dame de Paris, in which he left a note outlining the "crime of the replacement of our people" is reported to have inspired the far-rightIliade Institute's main ideological tenet of the Great Replacement.[87] Referring to the conspiracy theory, Marine Le Pen publicly praised Venner, claiming that his "last gesture, eminently political, was to try to awaken theFrench people".[86]
In 2015,Guillaume Faye gave a speech at theSwedish Army Museum in Stockholm, in which he claimed there were three societal things being used against Europeans to carry out a supposed Great Replacement: abortion, homosexuality and immigration. He asserted that Muslims were replacing white people by using birthrates as a demographic weapon.[88]
In June 2017, aBuzzFeed News investigation revealed three National Front candidates subscribing to the conspiracy theory ahead of thelegislative elections.[89] These included SenatorStéphane Ravier's personal assistant, who claimed the Great Replacement had already started in France.[90] Publishing an image of blonde girl next to the caption "Say no towhite genocide", Ravier's aide politically charged the concept further, writing "theNational Front or the invasion".[91]
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By September 2018, in a meeting atFréjus, Marine Le Pen closely echoed Great Replacement rhetoric. Speaking of France, she declared that "never in the history of mankind, have we seen a society that organizes an irreversible submersion" that would eventually cause French society to "disappear by dilution or substitution, its culture and way of life".[86] Following theChristchurch mosque shootings, Le Pen falsely denied knowledge of the theory.[92]
FormerNational Assembly delegateMarion Maréchal, who is a junior member of the politicalLe Pen family, is also a proponent of the theory.[93] In March 2019, in a trip to the US, Maréchal evoked the theory, stating "I don't want France to become a land of Islam".[94] Insisting that the Great Replacement was "not absurd", she declared the "indigenous French" people, apparently in danger of being a minority by 2040, now wanted their "country back".[76]
National Rally's serving president Marine Le Pen, who is the aunt of Maréchal, has been heavily influenced by the Great Replacement. TheFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has described the conspiracy theory creatorRenaud Camus as Le Pen's "whisperer".[95] In May 2019, National Rally spokesmanJordan Bardella was reported to use the conspiracy theory during a televised debate withNathalie Loiseau, after he argued that France must "turn off the tap" from thedemographic bomb of African immigration into the country.[96]
In June 2019, journalist and authorÉric Zemmour pushed the concept in comparison to theKosovo War, claiming "In 1900, there were 90% Serbs and 10% Muslims in Kosovo, in 1990 there were 90% Muslims and 10%Serbs, then there was war and theindependence of Kosovo".[97] Zemmour, author ofThe French Suicide, has repeatedly described "the progressive replacement, over a few decades, of the historic population of our country by immigrants, the vast majority of them non-European".[98] Later that month,Marion Maréchal joined Zemmour in invoking the Great Replacement in relation to theBalkan region, stating "I do not want my France to becomeKosovo" and declared that the changingdemographics of France "threatens us" ("nous menace") and that this was increasingly clear.[97] Zemmourran for president in 2022 and continued to extensively promote the theory during his campaign.[99] He finished in fourth place in the first round of the election, taking 7,07% of the vote.[100]
Identitäre Bewegung Österreich (IBÖ), the Austrian branch of theIdentitarian movement, promotes this theory, citing a "great exchange"[j] or replacement of the population that supposedly needs to be reversed.[101] In April 2019,Heinz-Christian Strache campaigning for hisFPÖ party ahead of the2019 European Parliament election endorsed the conspiracy theory.[102] Claiming that "population replacement" in Austria was a real threat, he stated that "We don't want to become a minority in our own country".[103] CompatriotMartin Sellner, who also supports the theory, celebrated Strache's political use of the Great Replacement.[104][105]
In September 2018,Schild & Vrienden [nl], an extremist Flemish youth organization, were reported to be endorsing the conspiracy theory. The group, claiming thatnative populations of Europe were being replaced by migrants; they proposed an end to all immigration,forced deportation of non-whites, and the founding ofethnostates.[106] The following month,VRT detailed how the organization was discussing the Great Replacement on secretive chat channels, and using the conspiracy theory to promoteFlemish ethnic identity.[107]
In March 2019, Flemish nationalistDries Van Langenhove of theVlaams Belang party repeatedly stated that theFlemish people were "being replaced" in Belgium, posting claims on social media which endorsed the Great Replacement theory.[108][109]
Use of the Great Replacement (Danish:Store Udskiftning) conspiracy theory has become common in right-wing Danish political rhetoric. In April 2019,Rasmus Paludan, leader of theHard Line party, which is widely associated with the Great Replacement,[110] claimed that by the year 2040ethnic Danish people would be approaching to be a minority in Denmark, having been outnumbered by Muslims and their descendants.[111] During a debate for the 2019 European Parliament elections, Paludan used the concept to justify a proposal to ban Muslim immigration and deport all Islamic residents from the country, in whatLe Monde described as Paludan "preaching the 'great replacement theory'".[112]
In June 2019,Pia Kjærsgaard (Danish People's Party) invoked the conspiracy theory while serving asSpeaker of the Danish Parliament. After the alleged encouragement of Muslim communities to "vote red", for theSocial Democrats; Kjærsgaard asked "What will happen? A replacement of the Danish people?".[111]
Far-rightFinns Party representatives and ministers have used the word "great replacement" (Finnish:Väestönvaihto) in their writings.[113] Finns Party Speaker of the ParliamentJussi Halla-aho and the party leader and deputy Prime MinisterRiikka Purra have also promoted the theory. Halla-aho stated that it is "dishonest to say that the great replacement is not going on, that it would not be rapid, and that it would not continue just as long as it is allowed to continue."[114] Riikka Purra wrote "In any case, I use the term great replacement myself, because that is what this is, as long as this is being actively perpetrated", Purra wrote. "As long as immigration policy is active and promotes immigration, the Finnish population will be exchanged for another".[115] In October 2023four men were convicted of offences committed with terrorist intent. According to the prosecutor, the defendants were motivated by the idea of a conspiracy of the government and Jewish people to replace the native population. Police said the potential targets of the attack were political decision-makers.[116]
Ex-SPD politicianThilo Sarrazin is reported to be one of the most influential promoters of the Great Replacement, having published several books on the subject, some of which, such asGermany Abolishes Itself, are in high circulation.[110] Sarrazin has proposed that there are too many immigrants in Germany, and that they supposedly have lowerIQs than Germans. Regarding thedemographics of Germany, he has claimed that in a centuryethnic Germans will drop in number to 25 million, in 200 years to eight million and in 300 years: three million.[110]
In May 2016,Alternative for Germany (German:Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) deputy leaderBeatrix von Storch used a language reminiscent of the theory when she claimed that plans for a mass exchange of populations ("Massenaustausch der Bevölkerung") had long been made.[117]
In April 2017, a few months before he assumed the leadership of the AfD,Alexander Gauland released a press statement regarding the issue of family reunification for refugees, in which he claimed that "Population exchange in Germany is running at full speed".[95][117] In October 2018, following Beatrix von Storch's lead, Bundestag memberPetr Bystron said theGlobal Compact for Migration was part of the conspiracy to bring about systemic population change in Germany.[117]
In March 2019,Vice Germany reported how AfD MPHarald Laatsch [de] attempted to justify and assign blame for theChristchurch mosque shootings, in relation to his "The Great Exchange"[j] theory, by asserting that the shooter's actions were driven by "overpopulation" from immigrants and "climate protection" against them. Laatsch also claimed that theclimate movement, who he labelled "climate panic propagators", had a "shared responsibility" for the massacre, and singled out activistGreta Thunberg.[118]
Similarly, right-wing publicistMartin Lichtmesz [de] denied that eitherAnders Behring Breivik's 2011 manifesto, which referred to theEurabia variant of the "white genocide" narrative, or Brenton Tarrant's 2019The Great Replacement manifesto, had any connection to the theory. Claiming that it was, in fact, not a conspiracy theory at all, Lichtmesz said both Breivik and Tarrant were reacting to a real phenomenon; a "historically unique experiment" of a "Great Exchange"[j] of people.[118]
Prime MinisterViktor Orbán and his political partyFidesz in Hungary have been associated with the conspiracy theory over the course of several years.[119][120]The Sydney Morning Herald detailed Orbán's belief in and promotion of the Great Replacement as being central to the modern right-wing politics of Europe. In December 2018, he claimed the "Christian identity of Europe" needed saving, and labelled refugees traveling to Europe as "Muslim invaders".[76] In a speech, Orbán asserted: "If in the future Europe is to be populated by people other than Europeans, and we accept this as a fact and see it as natural, then we will effectively be consenting to population replacement: to a process in which the European population is replaced".[121]
He has also stated: "In all of Europe there are fewer and fewer children, and the answer of the West is migration," concluding that "We Hungarians have a different way of thinking. Instead of just numbers, we want Hungarian children."ThinkProgress described the comments as pushing a version of the theory.[122] In April 2019,Radio New Zealand published insight that Orban's plans to cut taxes for large Hungarian families could be linked with fears of the Great Replacement.[123]
In 2025,Centre Party MPSnorri Másson claimed that the Great Replacement Theory was a "statistical fact".[124]
A 2019Lidl advertisement that featured a white Irish woman, herAfro-Brazilian partner and theirmixed race son was targeted by former journalistGemma O'Doherty as part of an attempt at a "Great Replacement". After facing online harassment the family decided to leave Ireland.[125][126][127] The "Great Replacement" has also been used in Ireland in opposition todirect provision centres, used to houseasylum seekers.[128]
Writing in 2020,Richard Downes said that "Rather than seeing the increase in non-Irish people living and making their lives here as being a normal part of a modern European country, some of the new nationalists see it as a conspiracy to overwhelm Ireland with foreigners. For many of them the conspirators include the Irish government,NGOs, theEU and theUN. They believe that these organisations want to replace Irish people with brown and black people from abroad."[129]
The term "great replacement" was also used when theRTÉ News featured the three first babies born in 2020, born toPolish, Black and Indian mothers; journalistFergus Finlay saying "I don't care about the vulgar abuse, but I really do believe that these hatemongers should be prosecuted when they incite others to hatred and violence against people whose only crime is their skin colour or religion. I find it hard to understand why the State hasn't acted already against these cruel ideologues who think they can say whatever they like under the banner offree speech. They may be small in number now, and on the surface they may just seem bonkers, but we've been here before. Political movements have been built on hatred of the other, and we know the damage they have caused."[130]
Garda Commissioner (national chief of police)Drew Harris spoke aboutfar right groups in 2020, saying that "Irish groups [believing] in the great replacement theory" had plans "to disrupt key State institutions and infrastructure. This includedDublin Port, high profile shopping areas such asGrafton Street in Dublin,Dáil Éireann and Government departments."[131][132][133]
Some participants in the2022–2023 Irish anti-immigration protests such asHermann Kelly andDerek Blighe support a Great Replacement theory, as well as referring to the influx of immigrants as an "invasion" and a "plantation".[134][135]
In 2024, a Red C survey found that 22% believed the establishment is replacing white people with non-white immigrants and that elected officials wanted more immigration to bring in obedient voters. This is linked with the great replacement theory.[136]
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The current Italian Prime MinisterGiorgia Meloni has endorsed the Great Replacement ideology.[137] Deputy Prime MinisterMatteo Salvini of Italy (2018–2019) has repeatedly adopted the theme of the Great Replacement.[119] In May 2016, two years before his election to office, he claimed "ethnic replacement is underway" in Italy in an interview withSky TG24. Accusing nameless, well-funded organizations for importing workers that he named "farm slaves", he stated that there was a "lucrative attempt at genocide" of Italians.[138][139]
In April 2023, theMinister of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and ForestsFrancesco Lollobrigida remarked to a trade union conference that "Italians are having fewer children, so we're replacing them with someone else. [We say] yes to helping births, no to ethnic replacement. That's not the way forward".[140]
In April 2015, writing on the publishing websiteGeenStijl, scholar of IslamHans Jansen used Great Replacement rhetoric, suggesting that it was an "undisputed" fact that among theEuropean Union's governing elite there was a common consensus that Europeans were "no good and can be better replaced".[141] In May 2015,Martin Bosma, a Dutch parliamentRepresentative for theParty for Freedom (PVV), released his bookMinority in their own land [nl]. Invoking the conspiracy theory, Bosma wrote about a growing 'a new population' of immigrants which lent itself to an apparently 'post-racial Multicultural State of Salvation'.[141]
In March 2017,Thierry Baudet, leader of the right wingForum for Democracy (FvD) party, promoted the theory after he claimed that the country's so-called elite were deliberately "homeopathically diluting" the Dutch population, in a speech about "national self-hatred". He said there was a plot to racially mix theethnic Dutch with "all the people of the world", so that there would "never be a Dutchman again".[141]
In January 2018, PVV RepresentativeMartin Bosma endorsed the Great Replacement theory, and one of its key propagators, after meeting withRenaud Camus at a PVV demonstration inRotterdam and tweeting his support.Filip Dewinter, a leading member of theFlemish secessionistVlaams Belang party, who had traveled to the Netherlands on the day of the protest to meet with Camus, named him as a "visionary man" to the media.[142]
Party for Freedom politicianGeert Wilders of the Netherlands supports the notion of a Great Replacement occurring in Europe.[143][144] In October 2018, Wilders invoked the conspiracy theory, claiming the Netherlands was "being replaced with mass immigration from non-westernIslamic countries" andRotterdam being "the port ofEurabia". He claimed 77 million, mainly Islamic immigrants would attempt to enter Europe over the course of half a century, and thatwhite Europeans would cease to exist unless they were stopped.[76] In 2019,The New York Times reported how Camus's demographic-based alarmist theories help fuel Wilders and hisParty for Freedom'snativist campaigning.[2]
In September 2018, Dutch authorPaul Scheffer analyzed the Great Replacement and its political developments, suggesting thatForum for Democracy andParty for Freedom were forming policy regarding thedemography of the Netherlands through the lens of the conspiracy theory.[145]
The far-right partyVox has been described as circulating the theory for its discourse about low natality rates in Spaniards compared to migrants.[146] According to journalist Antonio Maestre ofEl Diario, such an ideology is shared between Vox and some extreme strains ofCatalan nationalism who fear replacement by Spanish-speakers.[147]
According to November 2018 research from theUniversity of Cambridge, 31% ofBrexit voters believe in the conspiracy theory compared to 6% of British people who oppose Brexit.[148]
In July 2019, left-wing English musician and activistBilly Bragg released a public statement which accused fellow singer-songwriterMorrissey of endorsing the theory. Bragg suggested "that Morrissey is helping to spread this idea—which inspired theChristchurch mosque murderer—is beyond doubt".[149][150]
Prior to the2024 United Kingdom general election, videos of non-white people inLondon with captions such as "This is not Iran" spread on social media.Hope not Hate researcher Patrik Hermansson described the videos as prime examples ofdog whistles due to using language and imagery that direct viewers to the conspiracy theory without explicitly referencing it. He said, "[The videos] are dangerous because they often avoidmoderation and appear acceptable by seeming neutral in how they present reality".[151]
Leader of theVictory PartyÜmit Özdağ uses a Turkish version of the theory. He previously argued that Turkey will be a "Migrantland" (Göçmenistan) unlessKemal Kılıçdaroğlu wins the2023 Turkish presidential election.[152]
YouTuberLauren Southern of Canada has helped amplify the conspiracy theory.[76][153] In 2017, Southern dedicated a video to the Great Replacement, gaining over half a million views on her channel, before it was deleted.[20][154][155] 2018mayoral candidate for TorontoFaith Goldy has publicly embraced the replacement theory.[156][157] In 2019, in the aftermath of theChristchurch mosque shootings inChristchurch, New Zealand,Vice accused Goldy of routinely pushing the same ideas of birthrate declines and the population replacement of whites, found in the gunman'sThe Great Replacement manifesto.[158] When white nationalistPaul Fromm co-opted the pre-1967 Canadian national flag, theCanadian Red Ensign, he referred to it as "the flag of the true Canada, the European Canada before the treasonous European replacement schemes brought in by the 1965 immigration policies".[159]
In June 2019, columnistLindsay Shepherd claimed that "whites are becoming a minority" in the West, describing her assertion as "population replacement".[160] She was criticized by Canadian MPColin Fraser at a House of Commons justice committee for not denouncing the concept,[161] whileNathaniel Erskine-Smith accused Shepherd of openly embracing the conspiracy theory.[162]
The political commentatorMathieu Bock-Côté is known to frequently amplify the Great Replacement theory (French: Grand Remplacement) into mainstream media with his political ideologies.[163][164][165][166]
TheGreat replacement in the United States is the American version of awhite nationalist far-right conspiracy theory that racial minorities are displacing the traditional white American population and taking control of the nation. Versions of the theory "have become commonplace" in theRepublican Party of the United States, and have become a major issue of political debate. It also has stimulated violent responses including mass murders.[167] It resembles the Great Replacement theory promoted in Europe,[2] but has its origins inAmerican nativism around 1900. According to Erika Lee, in 1894 the old stock Yankee upper-class founders of theImmigration Restriction League were, "convinced that Anglo-Saxon traditions, peoples, and culture were being drowned in a flood of racially inferior foreigners from Southern and Eastern Europe."[168]
A May 2022 poll byYahoo! News andYouGov found that 61% of people who voted forDonald Trump in the2020 United States presidential election believe that "a group of people in this country are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants and people of color who share their political views."[169]
The media in Australia have covered former SenatorFraser Anning ofQueensland and his endorsement of the Great Replacement conspiracy theory.[170] In April 2019,Reuters reported how Anning was amplifying replacement theory by suggesting that Muslims would "out-breed us very quickly".[171] In May 2019, Anning alleged thatwhite Australians would "fast become a minority" if they did not defend their "ethno-cultural identity".[172]
The far right neo-Nazi youth groupAction Zealandia has endorsed the Great Replacement theory, alleging that European identity in New Zealand is being threatened by economically driven non-white migration.[173] In addition, the group has promoted thepseudohistorical notion that white people settled in New Zealand before the arrival of the indigenousMāori people.[174] According to the journalist Marc Daalder, Action Zealandia is the successor to the Dominion Movement, a far right group that ceased its activities following the 2019Christchurch mosque shootings.[175]
Adherents ofHindutva, aHindu nationalist ideology that emerged in the early 1920s and further serves as the ideology of the rulingBharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India, have frequently fuelled fears of the demographic erasure ofHindus by Muslims. They have alleged that Muslims have higher fertility rates compared to other Indian communities andforced religious conversions are reducing the number of Hindus. In 2022, Hindu nationalist Yati Narsinghanand was arrested on hate speech charges and spoke about the risk of a Muslim prime minister in 2029, which he said would lead to killings and forced conversions of Hindus. Members ofIndia's parliament andIndian television channels have also mainstreamed the claim of a demographic threat to Hindus. India's formerchief election commissioner,S.Y. Quraishi, said that fearmongering over the threat to a Hindu majority has increased since the2014 general election, when the BJP was elected to power.[176]
Hard rightconservatives inMalaysia have expressed fears that local Indian communities, often ofTamil descent, may oustMalay Muslims, who are the current majority in Malaysia. These fears were heightened due to theSri Lankan Civil War, backlash against activities of theHindu Rights Action Force, and Hindu nationalism in India. Political actors have exploited this to acquire votes in Malaysia's heartland and torally opposition against ratifying theInternational Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.[177]
In February 2023, thePresident of TunisiaKais Saied made comments about African immigration into Tunisia, saying that they were changing the demographic makeup of the country in order to make it a "purely African" nation.[178][179][180][181][182] This was widely interpreted as a Tunisian (or Arabic) version of the great replacement conspiracy theory allegedly in an attempt to distract voters from the policy failures of his government.[183][184]
Camus's use of strong terms like "colonization" and "Occupiers"[h] to label non-European immigrants and their children[24][43] have been described as implicit calls to violence.[26] Scholars likeJean-Yves Camus have argued that the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory closely parallels the concept of "remigration", aeuphemistic term for the forced deportation of non-white immigrants.[21][34] "We shall not leave Europe, we shall make Africa leave Europe," Camus wrote in 2019 to define his political agenda for theEuropean parliament elections.[43] He has also used another euphemism, the "Great Repatriation", to refer to remigration.[k][185]
According to historians Nicolas Bancel and Pascal Blanchard, along with sociologist Ahmed Boubeker, "the announcement of a civil war is implicit in the theory of the 'great replacement' [...] This thesis is extreme—and so simplistic that it can be understood by anyone—because it validates a racial definition of the nation."[21] Sceptical of Camus's description of second or third generation immigrants as being itself a contradiction in terms—"they do not migrate anymore, they are French"—demographerHervé Le Bras is also critical of their designation as afifth column in France or an "internal enemy".[39]
Fears of the white race's extinction, and replacement theory in particular, have been cited by several accused perpetrators ofmass shootings between 2018, 2019 and 2022. While Camus has stated his own philosophy is a nonviolent one, analysts including Heidi Beirich of theSouthern Poverty Law Center say the idea ofwhite genocide has "undoubtedly influenced" Americanwhite supremacists, potentially leading to violence.[186][187]
In October 2018, a gunman killed 11 people and injured 6 inan attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The gunman believed Jews were deliberately importing non-white immigrants into the United States as part of a conspiracy against the white race.[188][189]
Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the Australian terrorist responsible for themass shootings atAl Noor Mosque andLinwood Islamic Centre inChristchurch, New Zealand, on 15 March 2019, that killed 51 people and injured 49, named hismanifestoThe Great Replacement, a reference to Camus's book.[24][190] In response, Camus condemned violence while reaffirming his desire for a "counter-revolt" against an increase in nonwhite populations.[24]
In 2019, research by theInstitute for Strategic Dialogue showed over 24,000 social media mentions of the Great Replacement in the month before the Christchurch shootings, in comparison to just 3,431 mentions in April 2012. The use of the term spiked in April 2019 after the Christchurch mosque shootings.[191]
Patrick Crusius, the suspect in the2019 El Paso shooting, posted an online manifesto titledThe Inconvenient Truth alluding to the "great replacement"[186] and expressing support for "the Christchurch shooter" minutes before the attack.[192] It spoke of a "Hispanic invasion of Texas" leading to "cultural and ethnic replacement" (alluding to theReconquista) as justifications for the shooting.[186][190][192]
The suspect accused in the2022 Buffalo shooting listed the Great Replacement in a manifesto he had published prior to the attack.[193][194][195] The suspect described himself as afascist, white supremacist, and antisemite.[196]
Behind the idea is a racist conspiracy theory known as 'the replacement theory,' which was popularized by a right-wing French philosopher.
In July 2022, Tucker Carlson, the once-popular host of the Fox News' show, 'Tucker Carlson Tonight,' ended a segment that discussed the Biden administration's foreign policy by saying: 'The great replacement? Yeah, it's not a conspiracy theory. It's their electoral strategy.' With this startling statement, Carlson took a debunked conspiracy theory, espoused by Neo-Nazis and white supremacists alike, and spread it to millions of viewers via his mainstream media platform.
The 'great replacement theory' is a debunked conspiracy theory ... .
This article addresses recent strains of white nationalism rooted within anxieties over demographic replacement (e.g., 'the Great Replacement').
...this narrative is highly compatible with concrete conspiracy narratives about how this replacement is desired and planned, either by 'the politicians' or 'the elite,' which-ever connotes Jewishness more effectively.
This conspiracy theory, which was first articulated by the French philosopher Renaud Camus, has gained a lot of traction in Europe since 2015.
...the conspiracy theory of the Grand remplacement (Great replacement) positing the 'Islamo-substitution' of biologically autochthonous populations in the French metropolitan territory, by Muslim minorities mostly coming from sub-Saharan Africa and the Maghreb
As for thegrand replacement, this has been widely seen as a paranoid fantasy, which plays fast and loose with the statistics, is racist in that it classes as immigrants people actually born in France, glosses over the fact that around half of immigrants are from other European countries, and suggests that declining indigenous France will be outbred by Muslim newcomers when in fact it has the highest fertility rate in Western Europe, andnot because of immigration.
While the Great Replacement is at its core an Islamophobic belief, Lane's ideology is anti-Semitic.
Where the great replacement is an identifiably Islamaphobic screed, Lane's written works reveal an underlying fear-fantasy of a Jewish conspiracy that seeks the eradication of Lane's chosen people.
Camus, now 72, told The Washington Post that he condemns the Christchurch attacks and has always condemned similar violence. [...] Camus added that he still hopes that the desire for a 'counterrevolt' against 'colonization in Europe today' will grow, a reference to increases in nonwhite populations.
In fact, although white supremacists in the United States and elsewhere have long claimed the white race is under attack, the Great Replacement theory itself originated in France with philosopher Renaud Camus (though Camus himself rejects violence).
Such political rhetoric has been effective in the past decade, as more and more individuals in the US and Europe are less accepting of Muslims, particularly Muslim immigrants (Abbas, 2007; Croucher, 2008; Gonzalez et al., 2008).
L'écrivain distingue alors les remplacés (la civilisation européenne et sa culture), les remplaçants (les immigrés venus majoritairement d'Afrique du Nord et d'Afrique subsaharienne) et les remplacistes (le pouvoir qui ne cherche pas à inverser les flux migratoires afin de servir des intérêts politiques, de gauche notamment).
'L'Europe, il ne faut pas en sortir, il faut en sortir l'Afrique' [...] 'Jamais une occupation n'a pris fin sans le départ de l'occupant. Jamais une colonisation ne s'est achevée sans le retrait des colonisateurs et des colons. La Ligne claire, et seule à l'être, c'est celle qui mène du ferme constat du grand remplacement (...) à l'exigence de la remigration', ajoutent-ils.
The manifesto itself was soon reduced to the simple phrase 'white genocide', which proliferated at the start of the 21st century and has become the overwhelmingly dominant meme of modern white nationalism.
Although it's difficult to date precisely, white supremacist publishing houses being somewhat less reliable thanSimon & Schuster, that honor probably belongs to the late David Lane, terrorist, white supremacist, and author of an execrable little essay called 'White Genocide Manifesto'.
Valérie Igounet: 'certaines personnes ont cité cette théorie avant Camus mais c'est bien lui qui l'a popularisée. L'association de ces deux mots a fait mouche dans un contexte français particulier, et ce de manière très récente'
Michèle Tribalat of the Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED) has argued that the restriction forces policymakers to proceed with eyes wide shut, but Hervé Le Bras of the École d'Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) counters that such statistics simply objectify and dignify racist prejudices. Both views have some validity. Whichever way you feel, a consequence of our ignorance is that the specter of Le Grand Remplacement haunts French politics
In its fixation on demographic substitution, the fear [in Great Replacement theory] mimics settler colonial theory, which highlights how this form of colonialism is marked not primarily exploitation of native labour but through its elimination and replacement by immigrant-settlers: one society displaces another. Camus – and Tarrant who likely takes the French site of his 'enlightenment' story from him – fear they are native victims of reverse settler colonialism. Not for nothing does he talk about the 'colonization of Europe today.'
...claims it represents 'indigenous Europeans' and propagates the far-right conspiracy theory that white people are becoming a minority in what it calls the 'Great Replacement'
...and spread the 'great replacement' conspiracy theory—the idea that white Europeans will be replaced by people from the Middle East and Africa through immigration. The theory is based on inflated statistics and un-substantiated demographic projections. Right now, only 4 percent of the European Union is made up of non-EU nationals.
...le ' grand remplacement ', une théorie de type conspirationniste selon laquelle il existerait un processus de remplacement des Français sur leur sol par des non-Européens.
Marion Maréchal—pegged as the heir apparent to the Le Pen dynasty and a possible presidential contender in 2022—is a proponent of the 'Great Replacement' theory embraced by the man accused of the Christchurch killings in New Zealand.
Zemmour flirted with a far-right conspiracy theory; the Grand remplacement (Great Replacement)
A recurrent Salvini theme is what is known as the 'Great Replacement' conspiracy theory, which he described this way in an interview with Italy's Sky TG24 news
El discurso nacionalista catalán contra los castellanohablantes es una reformulación de la teoría supremacista neonazi del 'Gran Reemplazo', que argumentaba que la inmigración de países africanos a Europa tenía como objetivo diluir la identidad occidental. El votante potencial de Vox en Cataluña es para los nacionalistas esencialistas catalanes lo que los inmigrantes musulmanes son para Vox. La tormenta perfecta del odio. [The Catalan nationalist discourse against Castillian-speakers is a reformulation of the Neo-Nazi supremacist theory of the 'Great Replacement', which argues that immigration from African countries to Europe has as its objective the dilution of the Western identity. Vox's potential voter in Catalonia is for the purist Catalan nationalists what the Muslim immigrants are for Vox. The perfect storm of hatred.]
Last month, Senator Anning's party made a Facebook post endorsing The Great Replacement, 'We need to preserve our ethno-cultural identity, or we will fast become a minority,' Senator Anning's post said.
Il n'est d'autre chance de retour à la paix civile et à la dignité que la libération du sol national et le retour chez eux des colonisateurs : remigration, Grand Rapatriement.
This is the Great Replacement Theory," Kirk said. "Remember, we talked about — they want to replace white Anglo-Saxon Christian Protestants with Mexicans, Nicaraguans, with El Salvadorians
Party media release referring earlier interview in which Kelly states 'we must control the quality and number of economic migrants [...] we don't want the brutal demise or "great replacement" of our children'
Camus's notion of the Great Replacement has been spread by right-wing and white nationalist figures across the world. In July 2018, Lauren Southern, a Canadian alt-right figure posted, a video titled 'The Great Replacement' on YouTube that got over 250,000 views.(Punctuation error in the original.)