Identitarian movement
The Identitarian movement or Identitarianism is a pan-European nationalist, ethno-nationalist, far-right ideological movement centred on the preservation of white European identity, which it claims is under existential threat from multiculturalism, immigration, and globalisation. Originating in France in the 2000s as Bloc Identitaire, with its youth wing Generation Identity, 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-multiculturalist 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 xenophobic 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 hate groups, 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.
Origin and development
The Identitarian ideology is generally believed by scholars to be derived from the Nouvelle Droite, a French far-right philosophical movement that was formed in the 1960s in order to adapt traditionalist conservative and illiberal politics to a post-WWII European context and to distance itself from earlier far-right ideologies like fascism and Nazism, mainly through a form of pan-European nationalism. The Nouvelle Droite opposes liberal democracy and capitalism, and is hostile to multiculturalism and the mixing of different cultures within a single society. Although it is not supremacist, it is racialist because it identifies Europeans as a race. Strategies and concepts promoted by Nouvelle Droite thinkers, such as ethnopluralism, localism, pan-European nationalism, and the use of metapolitics to influence public opinion, have shaped the ideological structure of the Identitarian movement.Background
The Nouvelle Droite has widely been considered a neo-fascist attempt to legitimise far-right ideas in the political spectrum, and in some cases to recycle Nazi ideas. According to political scientist Stéphane François, the latter accusation, "though relevant in certain ways, incomplete, as it other references, most notably the primordial relationship to the German Conservative Revolution." The original prominence of the French nucleus gradually decreased, and a nebula of similar movements which were grouped under the term "European New Right" began to emerge across the continent. Among them was the Neue Rechte of Armin Mohler, also largely inspired by the Conservative Revolution, and another ideological source for the Identitarian movement. Martin Sellner, one of the biggest figures of the Identitarian movement, has been influenced by the theories of Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt. Leading Identitarian Daniel Friberg has likewise claimed influences from Ernst Jünger and Julius Evola.Through their think tank GRECE, Nouvelle Droite figures Alain de Benoist and Guillaume Faye sought to imitate Marxist 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 is characteristic of the 'European New Right', 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."
Emergence
The neo-Völkisch movement Terre et Peuple, which was founded in 1995 by Nouvelle Droite writers Pierre Vial, Jean Haudry and Jean Mabire, is generally considered a precursor of the Identitarian movement. In the early 21st century, Nouvelle Droite ideas influenced far-right youth movements in France through groups such as Jeunesses Identitaires and Bloc Identitaire. After 2012, the French Identitarian movement expanded across Europe, spawning the creation of chapters, offshoots, and like-minded groups, eventually forming a loosely connected pan-European network. It also inspired movements in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and even Chile.According to Richards, the Syrian civil war, the subsequent European migration crisis, growing economic globalisation, and escalating instability and terrorism in the Middle East and North Africa created conditions that radical-right groups, including the Identitarian Movement, exploited by appealing to widespread anti-immigration and anti-Islam sentiments.
Ideology
Definition
Identitarianism can be defined by its opposition to globalisation, multiculturalism, Islam and extra-European immigration; and by its defence of traditions, pan-European nationalism and cultural homogeneity within the nations of Europe. The concept of "identity" is central to the Identitarian movement, which sees, in the words of Guillaume Faye, "every form of homogenisation synonymous with death, as well as sclerosis and entropy". Scholar Stéphane François has described the essence of Identitarian ideology as "mixophobic", that is the fear of ethnic mixing.Building on this perspective, Tamir Bar-On defines the Identitarian worldview through several key elements. These include anti-universalism, the centrality of identity, and demographic fears. Additionally, Identitarianism emphasises metapolitics and activism, a call for radical solutions to alleged threats of white extinction, and a civilisational struggle against non-Europeans.
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.
Metapolitics
Inspired by the metapolitics of Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci via the Nouvelle Droite, Identitarians do not seek direct electoral results but rather to influence the wider political debate in society. Through education and counter-hegemonic narratives to challenge liberal multiculturalism and globalism, they seek to win the "war of ideas" by shifting public discourse on ethnic identity, immigration, and Islam, believing that a "silent majority" of white Europeans will eventually embrace their solutions. Identitarian theorist Guillaume Faye defines metapolitics as the "social diffusion of ideas and cultural values for the sake of provoking profound, long-term, political transformation".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 coastguard. In the event, the ship suffered an engine failure and had to be rescued by another ship from one of the NGOs rescuing migrants.