Great Replacement

The Great Replacement (French: Grand Remplacement), also known as replacement theory or great replacement theory, is a white nationalist far-right conspiracy theory disseminated 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 with 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 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." While similar themes have characterized various far-right theories since the late 19th century, the particular term was popularized by Camus in his 2011 book Le Grand Remplacement. The book associates the presence of Muslims in France with danger and destruction of French 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 the Government of France, the European Union, or the United Nations; they describe it as a "genocide by substitution". The conspiracy theory found support in Europe, and has also grown popular among anti-migrant and white nationalist movements from other parts of the West; 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". It aligns with (and is a part of) the larger white genocide conspiracy theory except in the strategic replacement of antisemitic canards with Islamophobia. This replacement, along with a use of simple catch-all slogans, have been cited as reasons for its broader appeal in a pan-European context, although the concept remains rooted in antisemitism in many white nationalist movements, especially (but not exclusively) in the United States. Although Camus has publicly condemned white nationalist violence, scholars have argued that calls to violence are implicit in his depiction of non-white migrants as an existential threat to white populations. Several far-right terrorists, including the perpetrators of the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings, the 2019 El Paso shooting and the 2022 Buffalo shooting, have made reference to the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory. American conservative media personalities, including Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, have espoused ideas of a replacement. Some Republican politicians have endorsed the theory in order to appeal to far-right members of the Republican Party and as a way of signalling their loyalty to Donald Trump.