Re-migration

Remigration is a far-right European concept of ethnic cleansing via the mass deportation or promoted voluntary return of non-white immigrants and their descendants, usually including those born in Europe, to their place of racial ancestry, often with no regard for their citizenship or legal status. It is popular especially within the Identitarian movement. Some proponents of remigration suggest excluding some persons with non-European background from such a mass deportation, based on a varyingly-defined degree of assimilation into European culture.

Advocates of remigration promote the concept in pursuit of ethno-cultural homogeneity. 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". The Mexican scholar José Ángel Maldonado has compared the idea to a "soft type of ethnic cleansing under the guise of deportation and segregation".

Presented by its proponents as a remedy to mass immigration and the perceived Islamisation of Europe, remigration has increasingly become an integral policy position of the Identitarian movement and other far-right political movements and parties. Research from the British Institute for Strategic Dialogue, conducted in April 2019, showed a distinct rise in conversations about remigration on the social media website Twitter between 2012 and 2019. Twitter, now owned by Elon Musk, and Telegram have been at the forefront of spreading the term into the mainstream.

Wider usage

The term ''remigration'' stems from Classical Latin ''remigrāre'', "to return home", and was first used in English in the writings of Andrew Willet, an early-17th-century theologian within the Church of England. It had originally meant simply "returning", later got applied to the voluntary return of an immigrant to their place of origin and is still used as such in social science, like the return of European Jews after World War II.

Origins and development

Background

Early evocations of the modern far-right concept of remigration can be found in French 1960s movements such as ''Europe-Action'', considered the "embryonic form" of the Nouvelle Droite. Jean-Pierre Stirbois, then General Secretary of the National Front (FN), coined the expression "we will send them back" ('on les renverra') in an interview. He was the architect of the first electoral breakthrough of the FN in 1983, earning nearly 17% of the vote in the city of Dreux with the promise of "inverting the migratory flows". The idea is also expressed in the German slogan "Deutschland den Deutschen, Ausländer raus" ('Germany to Germans, foreigners out'), and in the motto of L'Œuvre Française "La France aux Français" ('France to the French').

Identitarian movement

Remigration is a core tenet of the Identitarian movement. It is presented as a solution to the "Great Replacement", a conspiracy theory which states that white people are being replaced through migration, violence, and high birth rates by people from Africa, Muslims in particular.

In the 2010s, the Identitarian movements were trying to avoid the use of historically tainted vocabulary while expressing their ideas, trying to create a “new language”, for example, by replacing "race" with "culture". In the process, a successful strategy of reusing old term with a new meaning had been discovered. In particular, while their meaning of "remigration" was a neologism intended to replace the tainted "deportation", the word itself had a reputable history. This was especially in the German-speaking countries, where remigration denoted the post-Second World war return of German refugees who fled from Nazism, thus creating positive associations. Similarly, the "infiltration" got a new name, Great Replacement, a myth which states that the white Christian European population is being progressively replaced with non-European populations, specifically from North Africa and the Middle East, through mass migration, demographic growth, and a European drop in the birth rate.

French movement Generation Identity adopted remigration as part of its platform in 2015, but the new term remained obscure until January 2024, with mass interest generated by widely publicized 2023 Potsdam far-right meeting. Situation in Germany was similar: prior to 2023 ''Identitäre Bewegung Deutschland'' and AfD occasionally used the term since 2018 (AfD included it into its program in 2021), but the concept got into focus only in 2023.

As of 2024, the discourse on remigration remained on the back burner within the AfD, with no radical proposals, allowing the party to appeal to a broad electorate. At the same time, the concept was becoming increasingly normalized, with a wider audience now familiar with what was once an obscure Identitarian term.

Proponents of remigration often use the historical example of the expulsion of Pieds-Noirs from Algeria in 1962 as a successful past instance of organized forced remigration, even though the exodus is described by some historians as an ethnic cleansing stimulated by violence and threats from the National Liberation Front (FLN) and part of the native Muslim population, as evidenced by the slogan "the suitcase or the coffin" promoted by the FLN, the kidnappings of Pieds-Noirs, or the Oran massacre of 1962.

Modern use

Europe

Since the 2010s, the idea of remigration has been used by thinkers and political leaders of the Identitarian movement, such as Guillaume Faye, Renaud Camus, Henry de Lesquen, or Martin Sellner, 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.

Belgium

The Flemish nationalist party Vlaams Belang has called for "remigration" since 2011. In 2021 they called for the formation of an "Agency for Remigration".

In March 2025, Vlaams Belang leader Tom Van Grieken suggested the implementation of a "remigration policy" that would include illegal immigrants, asylum seekers and foreign national criminals. In April 2025, Mercina Claesen, a Vlaams Belang MP and leader of the party's youth wing, Vlaams Belang Jongeren, has called for the remigration not only of illegal immigrants, but also legal immigrants who have committed crimes.

Austria

In March 2019, a week after the Christchurch mosque shootings and release of the shooter's manifesto (called ''The Great Replacement''), Identitäre Bewegung Österreich, the Austrian branch of Generation Identity (GI), held a rally in Vienna, protesting the supposed Great Replacement of Austrians and openly calling for remigration of residents with a migrant background. By April 2019, a branch of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), who at the time were in coalition government as a junior partner with the Austrian People's Party, announced a "national call for remigration".

The FPÖ heavily emphasised remigration, particularly to Islamic countries, during its 2024 Austrian legislative election campaign. Party leader Herbert Kickl has called for the "remigration of uninvited strangers" from Austria.

Finland

Remigration (Finnish: Paluumuutto) has been featured prominently by Finnish anti-immigration and populist right. Far-right Finns Party declared in their party organ that "We have to shift from integration to remigration". The party leader and current Deputy Prime Minister Riikka Purra declared that "Remigration and strict immigration control are the main tools to prevent problems caused by immigration." The "Remigration Summit" in Milan was attended by a delegation from the neo-fascist Blue-and-Black Movement.

France

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.

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.

In February 2019, speaking with ''L'Opinion'', Debout la France candidate Emmanuelle Gave (daughter of French entrepreneur ), advocated for remigration as a policy for voters in the European Parliament elections in May. 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".

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.

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.

As of 2024, Marine Le Pen's party, National Rally, is opposed to remigration and cited Alternative for Germany's support for it as a reason to cut ties. Nevertheless, remigration continues to be supported by the National Rally's rival, Zemmour's Reconquête, and Marion Marechal's Identity–Liberties, a split from Reconquête.

Germany

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.

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. 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".

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.

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", and stating that "Germany and Europe must put in place remigration programs on the largest possible scale". AfD MP Markus Frohnmaier has repeatedly worn a slogan reading "Remigration Ministry" into the Bundestag.

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 the Identitarian activist Martin Sellner.

Italy

Lega Giovani, the youth wing of the right-wing populist Italian party Lega, advocated for remigration following violent incidents in January 2025 involving migrants in Como and Lombardy, and received support from the Lombardy regional leader of the party.

In May 2025, Lega MEP Roberto Vannacci addressed a 'Remigration Summit' in Milan, expressing supporting for remigration and stating that "remigration is not a slogan but a concrete proposal." In the same month, Lega MEP Isabella Tovaglieri similarly called for a "systematic remigration campaign".

Netherlands

In 2021, the Party for Freedom (PVV) called for the formation of a Ministry for Remigration in its manifesto, but removed this policy from its programme for the 2023 Dutch general election.

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.

Norway

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".

Portugal

Rita Matias, a Chega member of the Portuguese Parliament and the leader of the Chega Youth, has stated that "remigration is the solution".

Slovenia

Slovenian Democratic Party MEP Branko Grims stated "we need remigration" in his first 2024 speech to the European Parliament, suggesting "sending all those who abuse the acquis communautaire and asylum law back to where they came from".

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.

Sweden

The Sweden Democrats support remigration policies and have advocated for raising the allowance given to migrants to encourage voluntary repatriation. The Alternative for Sweden also advocates remigration.

Swedish Migration Minister Johan Forssell, a member of the Moderate Party, has stated that "remigration" is an 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.

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. 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.

As of 2024, the Homeland Party supports remigration as a policy.

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".

North America

United States

The Northwest Territorial Imperative, a white separatist idea put forward in the 1970s–1980s by American white supremacists, involves the expulsion, euphemized as the "repatriation", of all non-Whites from territories in the Northwestern United States in order to create a " White homeland".

Usage of the term in the United States has spiked in the months leading up to the 2024 presidential election. In September, the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, called for "remigration" of illegal immigrants to their home countries and suspending refugee resettlement, also pledging to "do large deportations in Springfield, Ohio", referring to the town's community of legal Haitian immigrants. The usage mainstreamed the term in the country. In May 2025, the Department of State released a "reorganization chart" that included the creation of an "Office of Remigration".

Canada

In August 2017, protestors flew banners throughout Quebec City, calling for the remigration of non-whites from the Quebec capital. 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.

Other

In August 2018, the Australian far-right extremist Blair Cottrell advocated remigration, calling for the deportation of "enemies of iscountry" and the execution of immigrants who refused to leave.

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". Ebner also stated that avoiding the word "deportation" is useful to sidestep associations of deportations during the Holocaust.

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".

See also

* 1938 expulsion of Polish Jews from Germany
* Voluntary return
* Deportation
* White nationalism
* Identitarian movement
* Nativism
* Great Replacement
* Back-to-Africa movement
* "Go back to where you came from"

References

Bibliography

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Anti-immigration politics
Anti-immigration politics in Europe
Counter-jihad
Identitarian movement
White genocide conspiracy theory
Ethnic cleansing in Europe