A banner advocating "remigration" during an anti-immigration protest in Calais, France, in 2015
Remigration,[1] also called repatriation,[2][3] is a far-right and Identitarian political concept referring to the forced or promoted return of non-ethnically European immigrants, often including their descendants who were born in Europe, back to their place of racial origin, typically with no regard for their citizenship.[4][5] It is popular especially within the Identitarian movement in Europe.[6][7] Some proponents of remigration suggest excluding some residents with non-European background from such a mass deportation, based on a varyingly-defined degree of assimilation into European culture.[8][9][10]
Advocates of remigration promote the concept in pursuit of ethno-cultural homogeneity.[10] According to Deutsche Welle, ethnopluralism, the Nouvelle Droite concept that different ethnicities require their own segregated living spaces, creates a need for remigration of people with "foreign roots".[11] Scholar José Ángel Maldonado has compared the idea to a "soft type of ethnic cleansing under the guise of deportation and segregation".[12]
Early evocations of the modern far-right concept of remigration can be found in French 1960s movements such as Europe-Action,[21] considered the "embryonic form" of the Nouvelle Droite.[22][23]Jean-Pierre Stirbois, then General Secretary of the National Front (FN), was the first to coin the expression "we will send them back" ('on les renverra') in an interview.[24] He was the architect of the first electoral breakthrough of the FN in 1983, earning nearly 17% of the votes in the city of Dreux with the promise of "inverting the migratory flows".[25] The idea is also expressed in the German slogan "Deutschland den Deutschen, Ausländer raus" ('Germany to Germans, foreigners out'),[26] and in the motto of L'Œuvre Française "La France aux Français" ('France to the French').[27]
Since the 2010s, the idea of remigration has been used by thinkers and political leaders of the Identitarian movement, such as Guillaume Faye,[35]Renaud Camus,[36][37]Henry de Lesquen,[9] or Martin Sellner,[38] as a euphemism for the mass deportation of non-European immigrants and native residents with a migrant background, back to their country of origin, the criteria of exclusion being a vaguely defined degree of assimilation into European culture.[8]
In August 2017, protestors flew banners throughout Quebec City, calling for the remigration of non-whites from the Quebec capital.[36] That same month, it was reported how Identity Evropa, who later rebranded themselves as the American Identity Movement, supported the remigration of immigrants from the United States.[39]
In August 2018, Australian far-right extremist Blair Cottrell openly advocated for remigration,[40] calling for the deportation of "enemies of my country" and the execution of immigrants who refused to leave.[41][42]
Belgium
Flemish nationalist party Vlaams Belang has called for "remigration" since 2011.[43]
In 2021, Vlaams Belang called for the formation of an "Agency for Remigration".[44]
In October 2017, Generation Identity announced policy plans to its members, for France to force former colonies to take back migrants by using its status as a nuclear power and making development subsidies and aid conditional on the repatriation of immigrants.[46]
In March 2018, an Al Jazeera investigative team released footage and audio revealing Marine Le Pen's close confidant and former accountant, Nicolas Crochet, saying that the National Rally party would introduce a remigration programme to force immigrants back to their country of origin, in the event that they came to power in France.[47]
In February 2019, speaking with L'Opinion, Debout la France candidate Emmanuelle Gave (daughter of French entrepreneur Charles Gave[fr]), advocated for remigration as a policy for voters in the European Parliament elections in May.[48] In what Libération described as a "dangerous penetration of the ideas of the ultra-radical extreme right in the French political space", Gave announced that she was in favor of the party putting remigration "on the table".[13]
According to an IFOP poll conducted in March 2022 prior to the French presidential elections, 63% of French people claim "not to be shocked" by the use of the word "remigration" and 66% support the idea of remigrating illegal immigrants, foreign criminals and "Fiche S" foreigners.[49][50][51]
According to an OpinionWay poll from March 2022, 55% of French people also support the establishment of a Ministry of Remigration, an idea proposed by Eric Zemmour during the French presidential elections campaign.[52]
As of 2024, Le Pen's National Rally is opposed to remigration and cited Alternative for Germany's support for it as a reason to cut ties.[53] Nevertheless, remigration continues to be supported by the National Rally's rival, Zemmour's Reconquête.[54]
Germany
Election poster of the AfD Thuringia supporting Remigration (2024)
In March 2018, Identitarian protesters were arrested for trespassing on the roof of Frankfurt Central Station, and hanging a banner that reads "Endstation Multikulti. Notbremse ziehen. Remigration" (Terminal station Multikulti. Pull emergency brake. Remigration), while chanting phrases like "home, freedom, tradition" from a megaphone.[55]
In March 2019, the German Identitarian movement began a "remigration campaign" which included governmental petitions, a "flashmob" outside a mosque and a demonstration in front of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community in Berlin, where the protesters demanded the repatriation of Islamic refugees back to the Middle East.[13] It was reported that the group were distributing posters aimed at Syrian refugees that read "The war is over. Syria needs you" and referenced a "remigration policy".[56]
In May 2019, Katrin Ebner-Steiner, leader of AfD in Bavaria, indicated that the deportation of non-whites from Germany was a preferable policy to racial integration, after she called for "Remigration instead of integration" at a conference for the Southern wing of the party.[10][57]
Ahead of the 2019 European Parliament election, Germany's opposition party, the far-right Alternative for Germany, made remigration part of their policy platform, openly calling for "remigration, instead of mass immigration",[13] and stating that "Germany and Europe must put in place remigration programs on the largest possible scale".[15] AfD MP Markus Frohnmaier has repeatedly worn a slogan reading "Remigration Ministry" into the Bundestag.[58]
In January 2024, Correctiv reported that members of the AfD had secretly met with figures from the German and Austrian far-right in a meeting in Potsdam in November 2023, in which they allegedly discussed a "remigration" plan for deporting immigrants, which could include naturalised German citizens. The figures present included Identitarian activist Martin Sellner.[59][60][61]
The Forum for Democracy advocates for "mass remigration" in order to maintain a "white Europe", and has criticised the PVV for focusing more on reducing immigration than promoting remigration.[64]
Spain
Vox Secretary General Ignacio Garriga has called for "mass remigrations" of illegal immigrants from Catalonia in 2024, following an increase in sexual assaults in the region.[65]
Swedish Migration Minister Johan Forssell, a member of the Moderate Party, has stated that "remigration" is a important issue for Sweden, and that wider use of voluntary repatriation in line with the policy followed by Denmark would be one of the options considered by his government.[68]
United Kingdom
Generation Identity UK and Ireland activists have engaged in the promotion of remigration. In April 2018, Hope Not Hate detailed how, while the group was relatively unknown by the mainstream media; its "core beliefs" of ethnopluralism, and remigration of non-whites from Europe, was more extreme than any policies of the English Defence League.[69] In May 2018, The Times was reporting how the extremist organization was promoting the singling out of Black British people for priority remigration from the UK.[70][71]
In 2022, the UK government proposed and outlined Regional Protection Zones and Transit Zones outside the EU to handle asylum claims with a proposal called "A New Vision for Refugees".[72] This approach prevents refugees and asylum seekers from applying to the UK, which compromises the Geneva Convention and Human Rights.[72] Moreover, the UK government has passed a new bill, Safety of Rwanda Act, in furtherance of a plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.[73] This is problematic in a couple of ways. First of all, the safety of the Rwanda bill is under question as Rwanda's capacity and human rights standards to accept refugees and asylum seekers are under question.[73] This scheme is recognized as unrealistic, legally wrong, and criticized for understating judicial independence and the rule of law.[73] However, the reasoning for passing this bill, in accordance with the UK government, was to reduce illegal crossings by small boats.[74] The UK government, however, posits that Rwanda is a safe country for the asylum seekers that are removed from the UK. [74] Additionally, the bill will ensure the safety and legal rights of asylum seekers with an enhanced committee overseeing the relocation.[74] The bill sets a precedent for the exploration of similar partnerships for other countries.[74]
After the 2024 United Kingdom general election, incoming Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the Rwanda plan would be scrapped, declaring it "dead and buried".[75]
According to Nick Lowles, one of the authors of a report by Hope not Hate, in a related concept, members of the counter-jihad movement "believe there will be a confrontation between Islam and the West and there can be no accommodation so the only solution can be to expel followers of Islam from Britain and Europe".[78] The influential Norwegian counter-jihad blogger Fjordman himself stated in his writings in June 2011 that "Islam, and all those who practice it, must be totally and physically removed from the entire Western world".[79]
Criticism
Michael Weiss and Julia Ebner, of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, have identified the "identitarian concept of 'remigration'" as having accelerated since 2014, and associated it with increasing calls from the far-right for mass deportation of non-white Europeans, in what they described as "ethnic cleansing".[80]
Francis Combes[fr] has described remigration as a form of demagoguery that would lead to ethnic cleansing. Arguing that France has had a mixed genetic heritage since Gallic times, he has questioned the practicality of expelling French people of immigrant origin and the number of generations that would require investigation in pursuit of "purity".[81]
The Nouvelle Droite, sometimes shortened to the initialism ND, is a far-right political movement which emerged in France during the late 1960s. The Nouvelle Droite is the origin of the wider European New Right (ENR). Various scholars of political science have argued that it is a form of fascism or neo-fascism, although the movement eschews these terms.
The European New Right (ENR) is a far-right movement which originated in France as the Nouvelle Droite in the late 1960s by Alain de Benoist. Its proponents are involved in a global "anti-structural revolt" against modernity and post-modernity, largely in the form of loosely connected intellectual communities striving to diffuse a similar philosophy within European societies.
Guillaume Faye was a French political theorist, journalist, writer, and leading member of the French New Right.
The Groupement de Recherche et d'Études pour la Civilisation Européenne, better known as GRECE, is a French ethnonationalist think tank founded in 1968 to promote the ideas of the Nouvelle Droite. GRECE founding member Alain de Benoist has been described as its leader and "most authoritative spokesman". Prominent former members include Guillaume Faye and Jean-Yves Le Gallou.
Ethnopluralism or ethno-pluralism, also known as ethno-differentialism, is a far-right political model which attempts to preserve separate and bordered ethno-cultural regions. According to its promoters, significant foreign cultural elements in a given region ought to be culturally assimilated to seek cultural homogenization in this territory, in order to let different cultures thrive in their respective geographical areas. Advocates also emphasize a "right to difference" and claim support for cultural diversity at a worldwide rather than at a national level.
Les Identitaires, formerly the Bloc identitaire, is an Identitarian nationalist movement in France. Like the French New Right, some generally consider the movement far-right or sometimes as a syncretic mixture of multiple ideologies across the political spectrum.
European nationalism is a form of pan-nationalism based on a pan-European identity. It is considered minor since the National Party of Europe disintegrated in the 1970s.
Pierre Vial is an academic medievalist tied to the Jean Moulin University Lyon 3. A Nouvelle Droite leader, he is the founder of the far-right, neopagan association Terre et Peuple.
Alternative for Germany is a far-right and right-wing populist political party in Germany. The AfD is Eurosceptic, and opposes immigration to Germany – especially of Muslims. The German judiciary has classified the party as a "suspected extremist" party, although it does not reject democracy.
The Identitarian movement or Identitarianism is a pan-European nationalist, ethno-nationalist, far-right political ideology asserting the right of the European ethnic groups and white peoples to Western culture and territories exclusively. Originating in France as Les Identitaires, with its youth wing Generation Identity (GI), the movement expanded to other European countries during the early 21st century. Its ideology was formulated from the 1960s onward by essayists such as Alain de Benoist, Dominique Venner, Guillaume Faye and Renaud Camus, who are considered the main ideological sources of the movement.
Identitäre Bewegung Österreich is an Austrian far-right nationalist and Neue Rechte organization. Inspired by the French Bloc identitaire, it belongs to the pan-European Identitarian movement and is the Austrian branch of the organization known as Generation Identity (GI).
Patriots.eu, formerly known as the Identity and Democracy Party (ID) and the Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom (MENF), is a nationalist, right-wing populist and Eurosceptic European political party founded in 2014. Its Members of the European Parliament sat in the Europe of Nations and Freedom group from 2015 to 2019, then in the Identity and Democracy group between 2019 and 2024; following the 2024 European Parliament election, most of its MEPs sit with the Patriots for Europe group.
Jörg Hubert Meuthen is a German economist, academic and Independent politician who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Germany from 2017 until 2024.
Martin Michael Sellner is an Austrian far-right political activist, and leader of the Identitarian Movement of Austria, which he cofounded in 2012. He is considered to be a key figure in the Neue Rechte in the German-speaking countries. He is also deemed to be part of the alt-right movement.
The Great Replacement, also known as replacement theory or great replacement theory, is a white nationalist far-right conspiracy theory espoused by French author Renaud Camus. The original theory states that, with the complicity or cooperation of "replacist" elites, the ethnic French and white European populations at large are being demographically and culturally replaced by non-white peoples—especially from Muslim-majority countries—through mass migration, demographic growth and a drop in the birth rate of white Europeans. Since then, similar claims have been advanced in other national contexts, notably in the United States. 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. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the Great Replacement "has been widely ridiculed for its blatant absurdity."
Terre et Peuple is a far-right and neo-pagan cultural association in France founded by Pierre Vial and launched in 1995. Its positions are close to the Identitarian movement, although it precedes that movement and its terminology.
Identity and Democracy was a far-right political group of the European Parliament, launched on 13 June 2019 for the Ninth European Parliament term. It comprised far right, right-wing populist, Eurosceptic and nationalist national parties from six European states. It was the successor to the Europe of Nations and Freedom group formed during the eighth term and almost all of its members merged into the Patriots for Europe group formed during the tenth term.
Europe-Action was a far-right white nationalist and euro-nationalist magazine and movement, founded by Dominique Venner in 1963 and active until 1966. Distancing itself from pre-WWII fascist ideas such as anti-intellectualism, anti-parliamentarianism and traditional French nationalism, Europe-Action promoted a pan-European nationalism based on the "Occident"—or the "white peoples"— and a social Darwinism escorted by racialism, labeled "biological realism". These theories, along with the meta-political strategy of Venner, influenced young Europe-Action journalist Alain de Benoist and are deemed conducive to the creation of GRECE and the Nouvelle Droite in 1968.
Atalante is a far-right, white nationalist group based in Quebec City, Canada. Their leader and founder is Raphaël Lévesque, lead singer for Quebecois skinhead band Légitime violence and leader of the earlier white power skinhead group Les Stompers.
On 25 November 2023, a group of right-wing extremists met at the Adlon Mansion on Lake Lehnitz in Potsdam, Germany. At the event, Martin Sellner, an Austrian right-wing extremist presented a plan for the deportation of certain parts of the German populace, namely asylum seekers, foreigners with a residence permit, and "non-assimilated" German citizens. The meeting was attended by members of the German right-wing populist party AfD, the mainstream centre-right party Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Werteunion, and the far-right Identitarian movement, among others. The meeting was exposed by the investigative journalism organization Correctiv, which published its findings on 10 January 2024.
References
↑ "Death toll in mosque attacks rises to 50". National Post. March 15, 2019. Camus held firm to his notion that immigrants are replacing natives in France and elsewhere. He says it is a "changing of the people" that should be combated with what he calls "re-immigration" and not with violence.
↑ Buck, Christopher (2009). Religious Myths and Visions of America: How Minority Faiths Redefined America's World Role. ABC-CLIO. pp.114–115. ISBN978-0-313-35959-0.
↑ "Parti de L'In-nocence". In-nocence. Retrieved 2019-08-05. 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.
↑ Richards, Imogen (2019). "A Philosophical and Historical Analysis of "Generation Identity": Fascism, Online Media, and the European New Right". Terrorism and Political Violence. 12 (1): 28–47. doi:10.1080/09546553.2019.1662403. ISSN0954-6553. S2CID210643607. Demonstrating GI's exclusionary politics, its members advocate for what they term a policy of forced "remigration," in which migrants (from primarily Middle Eastern, North African, and Muslim-majority nations), would be forced to return to their countries of origin
↑ Nissen, Anita (2020), Norocel, Ov Cristian; Hellström, Anders; Jørgensen, Martin Bak (eds.), "The Trans-European Mobilization of "Generation Identity"", Nostalgia and Hope: Intersections between Politics of Culture, Welfare, and Migration in Europe, IMISCOE Research Series, Springer International Publishing, pp.85–100, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-41694-2_6, ISBN978-3-030-41694-2, The call for so-called "remigration" of third-country immigrants is a term GI France has adopted from BI, referring to the (forced) returning of third-country immigrants to their home countries.
1 2 3 "Debatte Begriffe der neuen Rechten - Neue Wörter, alter Hass"[Debate terms of the new right - New words, old hate]. Die Tageszeitung (in German). July 1, 2019. [...] jedoch auch offizielle AfD-Accounts, welche fordern, dass syrische Flüchtlinge abgeschoben werden sollen, oder befinden, dass für „Türken", die sich „nicht integrieren wollen", eine Remigration das beste wäre. [...] liegt eine der größten Gefahren für offene und demokratische Gesellschaften in der Naivität gegenüber den politischen Bemühungen, extremistische Rhetorik zu normalisieren
1 2 3 4 5 "La "remigration", un concept qui essaime au-delà des identitaires"[Remigration, a concept that goes beyond identity]. Libération (in French). April 12, 2019. A key concept of French identity thought, remigration is a new euphemism for an old phenomenon, namely the forced displacement of entire populations. This notion is an integral part of the ideological project of the identity movement and figures prominently in its literature
↑ Romer, Eugene (1923). "The Population of Poland according to the Census of 1921". Geographical Review. 13 (3): 398–412. doi:10.2307/208278. ISSN0016-7428. JSTOR208278. This circumstance, together with the remigration of German colonists and the influx of Poles from other sections of the country...
↑ François, Stéphane (2013-05-23). "Dominique Venner et le renouvellement du racisme". Fragments sur les Temps Présents (in French). Retrieved 2019-08-16. De ce fait, la revue Europe Action était l'une des premières à critiquer l'immigration (l'«invasion») algérienne [...] et à inciter au rapatriement massif des étrangers, par hantise du métissage.
↑ Aftenberger, I. (2017). Die ‘Identitäre’ Beseitigung der andere. In J. Goetz, J. M. Sedlacek, & A. Winkler (Eds.), Untergangster des Abendlandes (pp. 203–227). Hamburg: Marta Press.
↑ "La "remigration", nouvelle frontière de l'extrême droite?"[The "remigration", new frontier of the far right?]. Libération (in French). February 28, 2017. Archived from the original on May 24, 2019. Retrieved July 1, 2019. Reduce or stop immigration? Inadequate, judges a part of the extreme right, which also pleads for the return to the country of most immigrants, even their descendants.
↑ Simard, Marc (2017). ""Remigration": un concept infondé et insensé". Le Soleil (in French). Retrieved 2020-04-12. Ce concept serait notamment historiquement justifié, selon ses propagandistes, par le retour en Europe, au tournant des années 60, de plus ou moins un million de pieds-noirs...
↑ Camus, Jean-Yves (2017). "D'où vient l'expression "remigration"?". Le Soleil. Retrieved 2019-08-17. [...] nombre de militants de la remigration avec qui j'ai parlé évoquent comme justification le fait que la remigration forcée a déjà existé, lorsqu'un million de «pieds-noirs» d'Algérie ont été obligés de fuir en métropole en 1962.
↑ Jordi, Jean-Jacques (2011). Un silence d'État: les disparus civils européens de la guerre d'Algérie. Paris: SOTECA. ISBN978-2-916385-56-3. OCLC760990079.
1 2 "D'où vient l'expression "remigration"?"[Where does the term "remigration" come from?]. Le Soleil (in French). 2017-08-19. Retrieved 2019-06-22. The word " remigration " means the return, forced or otherwise, of non-European foreigners, or even non-European citizens of origin, to the country where they have their roots.
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