The “Great Replacement” is a widely discredited far-right extremist conspiracy theory claiming that white European populations are being intentionally supplanted by non-white immigrants, especially from Muslim-majority countries. The term was popularized by French writer Renaud Camus, who alleges that political and cultural elites are deliberately engineering demographic change through immigration policies and declining birth rates among white Europeans.
The Great Replacement (French: grand remplacement), also called replacement theory, is a widely discredited far-right, white nationalist conspiracy theory associated with French writer Renaud Camus. It claims that, with the cooperation of so-called “replacist” elites, ethnic French and broader white European populations are being deliberately “replaced” by non-white immigrants—often framed as coming mainly from Muslim-majority countries—through mass migration, higher demographic growth among newcomers, and declining birth rates among white Europeans. Variations of this narrative have since appeared in other countries, especially the United States.
Scholars reject the theory’s central premise of an organized plot, noting that it relies on misread demographic data and promotes an unscientific, racist worldview. Although anxieties about immigration and cultural change have existed for generations, Camus popularized the specific label in his 2011 book Le Grand Remplacement, which portrays Muslim presence in France as a civilizational threat and casts demographic change as an intentional “substitution.”
The idea has been embraced by some far-right and anti-immigrant movements across Europe and North America, often presenting immigration as an “invasion” meant to make white populations minorities in their own countries. It overlaps with broader “white genocide” narratives, frequently swapping older antisemitic framing for Islamophobic themes—though antisemitic tropes still persist in many versions.
While Camus has publicly denounced violence, researchers argue the theory’s framing of migrants as an existential threat can function as a rhetorical justification for extremist action. References to the Great Replacement have appeared in propaganda and manifestos linked to several far-right terrorists, and the narrative has also been echoed by some high-profile political and media figures.
Great Replacement conspiracy theory in the United States
In the United States, the Great Replacement conspiracy theory generally claims that “political elites” are deliberately increasing the number of racial and religious minorities in order to weaken or displace the Christian white American population. Supporters often deploy it as a racist talking point to justify hardline anti-immigration policies and to signal xenophobic ideas through coded language. The narrative has gained traction in parts of the Republican Party, becoming a recurring theme in political debate, and it has also been linked to violent extremist radicalization, including mass-casualty attacks.
Recent research has associated endorsement of the theory with antisocial tendencies, authoritarian beliefs, and hostile attitudes toward immigrants, minorities, and women. The label and many core themes trace back to French writer Renaud Camus’s 2011 “Great Replacement” framing, and it overlaps with older “white genocide” conspiracies popularized in the U.S., including those promoted by extremist David Lane in the 1990s. Comparable versions circulate among far-right movements in Europe as well.
Although the modern slogan is recent, similar fears have deeper roots in American nativism. Around the turn of the 20th century, restrictionist activists argued that immigration—especially from Southern and Eastern Europe—was overwhelming what they saw as “Anglo-Saxon” culture and identity, a line of thinking that helped shape early organized anti-immigration movements.
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