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The Identitarian movement or Identitarianism is a pan-European nationalist, ethno-nationalist, far-right ideological movement centred on the preservation of White people European identity, which it claims is under existential threat from multiculturalism, immigration, and globalization. Originating in France in the 2000s as Bloc Identitaire ( Identitarian Bloc), with its youth wing Generation Identity (GI), the movement later expanded to other European countries in the 2010s. Identitarian ideology takes its sources in the interwar Conservative Revolution and, more directly, in the Nouvelle Droite, a far-right political movement that appeared in France in the 1960s. Essayists Alain de Benoist, Dominique Venner, Pierre Vial, Guillaume Faye and Renaud Camus are considered the main ideological sources of the Identitarian movement.
Rooted in an anti-universalist, anti-globalist, anti-liberal, anti-Islam, and anti-Multiculturalism worldview, the Identitarian movement sees ethnic, cultural, and racial identities as fundamental. It asserts that white Europeans face demographic and cultural extinction due to declining birth rates, extra-European immigration, and pro-diversity policies, a conspiracy theory that is known as the "Great Replacement". As a political solution to these perceived threats, Identitarians advocate for pan-European nationalism, localism, ethnopluralism, and remigration. They are opposed to cultural mixing and promote the preservation of homogeneous ethno-cultural entities, generally to the exclusion of extra-European migrants and descendants of immigrants, and may espouse ideas considered Xenophobia and racialist. Influenced by New Right metapolitics, they do not seek direct electoral results, but rather to provoke long-term social transformations and eventually achieve cultural hegemony and popular adherence to their ideas.
The movement is most notable in Europe, and although rooted in Western Europe, it has spread more rapidly to the eastern part of the continent through conscious efforts of the likes of Faye. It also has adherents among white nationalists in North America, Australia, and New Zealand. The United States–based Southern Poverty Law Center considers many of these organisations to be , describing them as racist, exclusionary, and in favour of ethnic separatism for whites. In 2019, the Identitarian Movement was classified by the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution as right-wing extremist. In 2021, the French group Generation Identity was banned for racial incitement, violence, and paramilitary ties.
Through their think tank GRECE, Nouvelle Droite figures Alain de Benoist and Guillaume Faye sought to imitate Marxism metapolitics, especially the tactics of cultural hegemony, agitprop and entryism, which they believed had enabled left-wing movements to achieve cultural and academic dominance from the mid-20th century onward. New Right ethnonationalist thinkers played a pivotal role in shaping Identitarian ideology, with figures such as Guillaume Faye, Pierre Vial, Dominique Venner, and Renaud Camus insisting on the promotion of homogeneous regional, national, pan-European, and white ethnic identities. Venner and his magazine Europe-Action, considered the "embryonic form" of the Nouvelle Droite, have been instrumental in redefining pan-European nationalism on the "white nation" rather than the "nation state". From the 1990s onward, Venner, Vial and Faye pushed for a stronger commitment to the Identitarian struggle, arguing that metapolitics alone was insufficient, and calling for a cultural revolution against multiculturalism, Islam, and globalism. In the 2000s, Camus and Faye introduced two of the movement's defining concepts: the Great Replacement and remigration.
According to scholar Imogen Richards, "while in many respects Génération is characteristic of the 'European New Right' (ENR), its spokespersons' various promotion of capitalism and commodification, including through their advocacy of international trade and sale of merchandise, diverges from the anti-capitalist philosophizing of contemporary ENR thinkers."
According to Richards, the Syrian civil war (2011–), the subsequent European migration crisis (2015), growing economic globalisation, and escalating instability and terrorism in the Middle East and North Africa (spreading into Europe) created conditions that radical-right groups, including the Identitarian Movement, exploited by appealing to widespread anti-immigration and anti-Islam sentiments.
Building on this perspective, Tamir Bar-On defines the Identitarian worldview through several key elements. These include anti-universalism (rejecting liberal and left-wing perceived efforts to homogenise different peoples under a universal framework), the centrality of identity (viewing ethnic, cultural, and racial identities, particularly those of white Europeans, as fundamental and under threat), and demographic fears (centred on concerns over declining white birth rates, immigration, Islam, and multicultural policies, which are framed as leading to the so-called "Great Replacement"). Additionally, Identitarianism emphasises metapolitics and activism (combining ideological dissemination with direct action, including propaganda campaigns and political agitation), a call for radical solutions to alleged threats of white extinction (such as remigration, national preference in employment and welfare, and the "reconquest" of immigrant-dominated areas), and a civilisational struggle against non-Europeans (portraying white European identity as existentially threatened and drawing on historical narratives of Christian and Western achievements).
Philosopher Pierre-André Taguieff argues that the Identitarian 'party-movements' generally share the following traits: a call to an 'authentic' and 'sane' people, which a leader is claiming to embody, against illegitimate or unworthy elites; and a call for a purifying break with the supposedly 'corrupt' current system, in part achieved by 'cleaning up' the territory from elements perceived as 'non-assimilable' for cultural reasons, Muslims in particular.
Scholars have also described the essence of Identitarianism as a reaction against the permissive ideals of the '68 movement, embodied by the baby boomers and their perceived left-liberal dominance on society, which they sometimes label "Cultural Marxism".; ; ; ; ; . Bar-On notes that while Identitarian thinkers and the Nouvelle Droite criticise the liberal-left legacy of the May 1968 events, the Nouvelle Droite views the 1968 generation as a model to follow, precisely because they successfully "conquered" the media, academia, and other centres of intellectual influence.
In 2006, Swedish Identitarians launched Metapedia as an alternative encyclopedia to advance their New Right and Identitarian ideas and gain wider support. In 2009, Daniel Friberg established the publishing house Arktos Media, which has grown since that date as the "uncontested global leader in the publication of English-language Nouvelle Droite literature." Some Identitarian parties have nonetheless contested elections, as in France or in Croatia, but so far with no success. Éric Zemmour, who has been described as belonging to the Identitarian movement by some scholars, won 7.1% of the votes during the 2022 French presidential election.
A key strategy of the Identitarian movement is to generate large media attention by symbolically occupying popular public spaces, often with only a handful of militants. The largest action as of 2019, labelled "Defend Europe", occurred in 2017. After crowdsourcing more than $178,000, Identitarian militants chartered a ship in the Mediterranean Sea to ferry rescued migrants back to Africa, observe any incursions by other NGO ships into Libyan waters, and report them to the Libyan Navy. In the event, the ship suffered an engine failure and had to be rescued by another ship from one of the NGOs rescuing migrants.
The pairing of Muslim immigration and Islam with the concept of ethnopluralism is indeed one of the main bases of Identitarianism, and the prediction of a future Ethnic conflict between whites and immigrants is central for Identitarian theorists. In their worldview, "ethno-masochism" (the hatred of one's own ethnicity) and xenophilia (the love of foreigners) contribute to a perceived "Great Replacement" of white Europeans, leading an eventual risk of extinction. They claim that this alleged replacement can only be halted, and a potential civil war avoided, by ending pro-multicultural, pro-immigration, and pro-anti-racism policies. However, they doubt such steps will be taken because elites and the general public do not recognise the threat they warn about. In 2016 Guillaume Faye claimed that "the ethnic civil war, like a snake's baby that breaks the shell of its egg, was only in its very modest beginnings". He had earlier preached "total ethnic war" between "original" Europeans and Muslims in The Colonization of Europe in 2000, which earned him a criminal conviction for incitement to racial hatred. See also: Faye, Guillaume (2016). "La guerre civile ethnique est-elle évitable ? Probablement pas" : "La guerre civile ethnique, comme un serpenteau de vipère qui brise la coquille de son œuf, n'en est qu'à ses très modestes débuts." These calls to ethnic conflictual violence, also exemplified by Pierre Vial's incitement of a "war of liberation" against "ethnic colonisation", is however opposed by other Identitarian thinkers and groups. Alain de Benoist disavowed Faye's "strongly racist" ideas regarding Muslims after the publication of his 2000 book.
Scholar Stéphane François argues that Identitarian geopolitics should be seen as a form of "ethnopolitics". In their vision, the world would be structured into different "ethnospheres", each dominated by ethnically related peoples. They promote ethnic solidarities between European peoples, and the establishment of a confederation of regional identities that would eventually replace the various nation states of Europe, which are seen as an inheritance from the "dubious philosophy of the French Revolution". While Identitarians generally dismiss the European Union as "corrupt" and "authoritarian", they also advocate for a "European-level political body that can hold its own against superpowers like United States and China."
Identitarians do not share, however, a common vision on liberalism. Some regard it as a part of European identity "threatened by Muslims who do not respect women or gay people", whereas others like Daniel Friberg describe it as the "disease" that contributed to Muslim immigration in the first place.
Following Piero Ignazi's framework, Pierre-André Taguieff classifies the Identitarian 'party-movements' as a new "post-industrial" far-right, distinct from the "traditional" nostalgic far-right. Their ultimate goal is to enter mainstream politics, Taguieff argues, as "post-fascists rather than Neo-fascism, and post-nazis rather than Neo-Nazism." A 2014 investigation led by political scientist Gudrun Hentges came to the conclusion that the Identitarian movement is ideologically situated between the French National Rally, the Nouvelle Droite, and neo-Nazism.Hentges, Gudrun, Gürcan Kökgiran, and Kristina Nottbohm (2014). " Die Identitäre Bewegung Deutschland (IBD)–Bewegung oder virtuelles Phänomen " In: Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen 27(3): 1–26. According to Tamir Bar-On, Identitarianism sets itself apart from fascism, Nazism, traditional racism, white supremacism, and imperialism, yet remains outside the mainstream conservative spectrum. He describes it as a "fourth way" that rejects the Old Right's embrace of violence, the Nouvelle Droite
Scholar A. James McAdams has described the Identitarian movement as a "second generation" in the evolution of European far-right foundational critique of liberal democracy during the post-war era: "the first of these generations, congregated around the members of the French Nouvelle Droite (New Right), defined difference as a right ('a right to difference') to which all persons were entitled by virtue of their shared humanity. A second generation, epitomized by the pan-European Identitarian movement of the early 2000s, replaced the language of rights with the less exacting claim to respect the differences of others, especially those based on ethnicity. Finally, in response to the degeneration of Identitarian thinking into outright xenophobia and racism, a third generation of theorists emerged in the 2010s with the expressed aim of restoring the respectability of far-right thought."
According to Christoph Gurk of Bayerischer Rundfunk, one of the goals of Identitarianism is to make racism modern and fashionable.Christoph Gurk: Diese Gruppen machen den Rassismus hip (Interview with Alexander Häusler). Bayern plus of the Bayerischer Rundfunk, 17 May 2013. Austrian Identitarians invited radical right-wing groups from across Europe, including several neo-Nazi groups, to participate in an anti-immigration march, according to Anna Thalhammer of Die Presse. Das Netzwerk der Identitären mit der FPÖ, Anna Thalhammer, Die Presse, 10 June 2016. There has also been Identitarian collaboration with the white nationalist activist Tomislav Sunić. Tomislav Sunić zu Gast bei "Identitären", DÖW, February 2016.
An undercover investigation conducted by Al Jazeera Investigates into the French branch, which aired on 10 December 2018, captured GI activists punching a Muslim woman whilst saying "Fuck Mecca" and one saying if ever he gets a terminal illness he will purchase a weapon and cause carnage. When asked by the undercover journalist who would be the target he replies "a mosque, whatever". French prosecutors have launched an inquiry into the findings amidst calls for the group to be proscribed.
Collectif Némésis, a feminist and Identitarian organisation founded in 2019, believes in a connection between immigration and crime, and that non-European present an elevated risk of violence towards women.
Génération Identitaire was banned by French authorities in March 2021 for racial incitement, violence, and paramilitary ties.
On 27 April 2018 the IBÖ and the homes of its leaders were searched by the Austrian police, and investigations were started against Sellner on suspicion that a criminal organisation was being formed. Ermittlungen in Österreich - Durchsuchungen bei "Identitärer Bewegung", Tagesschau, 28 April 2018. Hausdurchsuchung bei Identitären-Chef, Österreich, 27 April 2018. The court later ruled that the IBÖ was not a criminal organisation.
The Identitarian movement has a close linkage to members of the Neue Rechte, (2025). 9783897715493, Unrast. ISBN 9783897715493 e.g., to its prominent member Götz Kubitschek and his journal Sezession, for which the Identitarian speaker Martin Sellner writes. Benjamin Reuter, "Identitäre Bewegung : Das lächelnde Gesicht der Neuen Rechten" , Huffington Post, May 16, 2016.
In August 2016 members of the Identitarian movement in Germany scaled the iconic Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and hung a banner in protest at European immigration and perceived spread of Islam. In September of the same year, members of the Identitarian movement erected a new summit cross in a "provocative" act (as the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported) on the Schafreuter, after the original one had to be removed because of damage by an unknown person.
In June 2017, the PayPal donations account of the Identitarian "Defend Europe" was locked, and the Identitarian account of the bank Steiermärkische Sparkasse was closed.
On 11 July 2019, Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the country's domestic intelligence agency, formally designated the Identitarian Movement as "a verified extreme right movement against the liberal democratic constitution". The new classification has allowed the BfV to use more powerful surveillance methods against the group and its youth wing, Generation Identity. The Identitarian Movement has about 600 members in Germany.Croucher, Shane (11 July 2019) "Identitarian Movement, Linked to Christchurch Mosque Shooter, Classified as Extremist Right-wing Group by German Intelligence Agency" Newsweek
South west Germany alone had about 100 members, mostly in Ulm, Reutlingen, Pforzheim and Stuttgart with 2.400 followers on instagram; the group changed its original name from Identitäre Bewegung Schwaben to 'Kesselrevolte/Schwaben Bande' to 'Wackre Schwaben' to 'Reconquista 21'.
On 9 March 2018, Sellner and his girlfriend Brittany Sellner were barred from entering the UK because their presence was "not conducive to the public good".
Prior the ban, Sellner intended to deliver a speech to the Young Independence party, though they cancelled the event, citing supposed threats of violence from the far-left. Prior to being detained and deported, Sellner intended to deliver his speech at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. In June 2018 Tore Rasmussen, a Norwegian activist who had previously been denied entry to the United Kingdom, was working in Ireland to establish a local branch of Generation Identity.
In August 2018, the leader of GI UK Tom Dupre resigned from his position after UK press revealed Rasmussen, who was a senior member in the UK branch, had an active past in neo-Nazi movements within Norway.
Generation Identity UK has been conferencing with other organisations, namely Identity Evropa/American Identity Movement. Identity Evropa/American Identity Movement is known for its involvement in the deadly 11–12 August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States and its antisemitism. Jacob Bewick, an activist with GI, had been exposed as a member of proscribed terror organisation National Action and was spotted at an NA march in 2016. At an after conference event, one GI UK member told a Hope not Hate informant that two members of the fascist National Front (and former NA members) were present.
The UK branch was condemned by the wider European movement on Twitter when it held its second annual conference and had invited numerous controversial alt-right speakers. Speaking alongside the UK's new leader Ben Jones was alt-right YouTuber Millennial Woes and Nouvelle Droite writer Tomislav Sunić.
This controversy led to a number of members leaving the organisation in disgust at what they perceived to be a shift towards the "Old Right". This led to concern that the British version may become more radicalised and dangerous. Simon Murdoch, Identitarianism researcher at Hope not Hate, said: "Evidence suggests we will be left with a smaller but more toxic group in the UK, open to engagement with the more antisemitic, extreme and thus dangerous elements of the domestic far-right."
According to Unite Against Fascism, the Identitarian Movement in the UK is estimated to have a membership of less than 200 activists as of June 2019.
The influence of Identitarian theories has been noted in the Sweden Democrats' slogan "We are also a people!".
The founder of the far-right Croatian party Generation of Renovation has stated that it was originally formed in 2017 as that country's version of the alt-right and Identitarian movements.
The separatist party Som Catalans claims to defend the "identity of Catalonia" against "Spanish colonialism and the migrant invasion", as well as the "islamisation" of the Spanish autonomous community. Similar stances are also found in Spanish nationalist parties, such as Identitarios, which align themselves with the European Identity and Democracy Party.
In Belgium, in 2018, the State Security Service saw the rise of in the context of Identitarian groups emerging throughout Europe. A Europol terror report mentioned Soldaten van Odin and the defunct group La Meute.
In the Netherlands, was founded in 2012. Its main goal is "preservation of the national identity". Training their members at camps in France, their protests in the Netherlands attract tens of participants.
In Flanders, the website Voorpost is an ethnic nationalist ( volksnationalist) group founded by Karel Dillen in 1976 as a splinter from the People's Union. (1994). 9789027221421, John Benjamins. ISBN 9789027221421
Voorpost pursues an irredentist ideal of a Greater Netherlands, a nation state that would unite all Dutch language-speaking territories in Europe.
The organisation has staged rallies on various topics, against Islam and mosques, against leftist organizations, against drugs, against pedophilia, and against socialism.Rodrigues and Donselaar (eds), Monitor Racisme & Extremisme - Negende rapportage, Pallas Publications, Amsterdam University Press (2010), pp. 49-50 ( online copy)
The Hungarian chapter, Identitesz, merged into Force and Determination in 2017.
The Dingoes are an Australian group who were described in a 2016 news report as "young, educated and Alt-right", and were compared to the Identitarian movement in Europe. Members do not reveal their identity. National Party MP George Christensen and One Nation candidate Mike Latham were both interviewed on the Dingoes podcast, called The Convict Report, but Christensen later said that he would not have done it if he had known about their extremist views. The podcast also featured a New Zealand man who ran the Dominion Movement, who was later arrested for sharing information that threatened NZ security.
New Zealand had hosted the Dominion Movement, which labelled itself as "a grass-roots Identitarian activist organisation committed to the revitalisation of our country and our people: white New Zealanders". The website for the group shutdown alongside New Zealand National Front in the aftermath of the Christchurch mosque shootings in March 2019. In late 2019, the Dominion Movement was largely replaced by a similar White supremacy group called Action Zealandia,Daalder, Marc (August 10, 2019) "White supremacists still active in NZ" Newsroom after its co-founder and leader, a New Zealand soldier, was arrested for sharing information that threatened NZ security.
Australian Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand, was a believer in the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, named his manifesto after it, and donated €1,500 to Identitarian leader Martin Sellner of Identitäre Bewegung Österreich (IBÖ) a year prior to the terror attacks. An investigation into the potential links between Tarrant and IBÖ was conducted by then Austrian Minister of the Interior Herbert Kickl. Other than the donation, no other evidence of contact or connections between the two parties has been found. The Austrian government is considering dissolving the group. The shooter also donated €2,200 to Génération Identitaire, the French branch of the Generation Identity. Tarrant exchanged emails with Sellner with one asking if they could meet for coffee or beer in Vienna and sent him a link to his YouTube channel. This was confirmed by Sellner, but he denied interacting with Tarrant in person or knowing of his plans. The Austrian government later opened an investigation into Sellner over suspected formation of a terrorist group with Tarrant and the former's fiancée Brittany Pettibone who met Australian far-right figure Blair Cottrell. identifies himself as a leadership member of the American Identitarian movement.
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On 20 May 2017, two non-commissioned officers with the U.S. Marines were arrested for trespassing after displaying a banner from a building in Graham, North Carolina, during a Confederate Memorial Day event. The banner included the Identitarian logo, and the phrase "he who controls the past controls the future", a reference to George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, along with the initialism YWNRU, or "you will not replace us". The Marine Corps denounced the behaviour and investigated the incident. A marine spokesperson commented to local news: "Of course we condemn this type of behavior ... we condemn any type of behavior that is not congruent with our values or that is illegal." Both men pleaded guilty to trespassing. One received military administrative punishment. The other was discharged from the corps.
La Meute (French for "The Pack") is a Québécois nationalist pressure group and identitarian movement fighting against illegal immigration and radical Islam. The group was founded in September 2015 in Quebec by two former Canadian Armed Forces members, Éric Venne and Patrick Beaudry, both of whom have left the group. La Meute announced it would prefer "to become large enough and organized enough to constitute a force that can't be ignored". The group has been attacked by anti-fascists in Montreal. Montreal: Antifascists Force Nationalists & Identitarians To Hide Behind Police Lines May 7, 2019 A parallel protest encampment was set up in Gatineau, Quebec, during the larger Canada convoy protests in Ottawa. Steeve Charland of Grenville, Quebec, was arrested and charged in relation to the protests. Charland was reported as one of the leaders of La Meute in opposition to Canada's decision to open its borders to Syrian refugees. During the "Freedom Convoy" protests in Ottawa, Steeve Charland acted as the leader and spokesperson for the Farfadaas, a group that opposes COVID-19 health measures and whose members are recognizable by their leather vests marked with an expletive hand gesture.
North America
United States
The now-defunct neo-Nazi Traditionalist Worker Party was modelled after the European Identitarian movement, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. Identity Evropa and its successor the American Identity Movement in the United States labels itself Identitarian, and is part of the alt-right. Richard Spencer's National Policy Institute is also a white nationalist movement, which advocates an American version of Identitarianism called "American Identitarianism". The SPLC also reports that the Southern California-based Rise Above Movement "is inspired by Identitarian movements in Europe and is trying to bring the philosophies and violent tactics to the United States".Staff (ndg) "Rise Above Movement" Southern Poverty Law Center
Canada
The Canadian organisation Generation Identity Canada was formed in 2014, and was renamed IDCanada in 2017. The organisation has distributed material across the country, such as in Hamilton, Ontario, Saskatoon, Peterborough, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Alberta, and in Quebec.
See also
Notes
Bibliography
(2025). 9780674971530, Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674971530
(2025). 9780190877613, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190877613
(2025). 9780429627095, Routledge. ISBN 9780429627095
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