– Power must be given back to the people from minorities who oppress the majority.
Thus French far-right commentator Eric Zemmour stated in the opening speech of his presidential election campaign in the fall of 2021.
Convicted of several hate crimes, Zemmour is a famous television face in France. He did not only mention the population exchange theory in his election campaign, but has been repeating the conspiracy in public for years.
Also published in autumn 2021 survey showed that up to 67 percent of French people are worried about population change.
According to researchers, Zemmour has been one of the key factors that are in their activities brought the conspiracy discussion into the mainstream.
In this story, we go through how politicians or other influential people in different countries have brought the conspiracy of population change into the political debate.
The term has sparked a lively discussion in Finland as well, after the Minister of the Interior Mari Rantanen (ps.)’s references to population change in their online writings became public last week.
Rantanen and several other leading figures of Basic Finns resigned on Sunday due to conspiracy theories. Prime minister Petteri Orpo (co.) has commented that in his opinion Rantan has nothing to do with terrorism or the extreme right.
In addition to Rantanen, at least the finance minister has previously referred to population exchange Riikka Purra (ps.), Minister of Justice Leena Meri (ps.) and Speaker of the Parliament Jussi Halla-aho (ps.). Helsingin Sanomat including the Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Ville Tavio (ps.) has referred to the matter several times in his speeches in plenary sessions.
Conspiracy about population exchange raises concern among the French
The conspiracy theory cultivates the threat that non-white immigrants will replace the white population in Europe and the United States.
According to the researcher, many French people know the term population change, but not necessarily where it came from or what the theory’s basis of truth is.
– Many may not even know that it is a conspiracy theory, University researcher Gwenaëlle Bauvois from the University of Helsinki says. Bauvois has researched, among other things, conspiracy theories and the extreme right in Finland, France and the United States.
The theory of population change spread in France even before Zemmour’s election campaign.
According to Bauvois, the term became popular in the 2010s, when a French ethno-nationalist writer Renaud Camus tackled it. In his book, Camus claims that Muslims are a great threat that will lead to the destruction of French culture and society.
Camus and Zemmour argue that Muslims with immigrant backgrounds are displacing the native population of France. In reality, less than ten percent of the French population is Muslim.
Conspiracy theorists also blame the phenomenon on those who allegedly allow it.
– In France, people who believe in the theory also blame, among other things, the liberal elite, the European Union and the country’s government, Bauvois characterizes.
According to the researcher, the refugee crisis of 2015 was the impetus with which the conspiracy about population exchange moved into the mainstream of political discussion. Some French Republicans also started using the term.
The same was seen in the 2022 French elections, when one of the main candidates in the presidential race caught on to the conspiracy. A center-right party Valerie Pécresse repeated the message of population change while competing for voters with Zemmour and the rest of the right.
Several other right-wing populist politicians have also spoken about the conspiracy theory, such as the ex-president of the United States Donald Trumpthe top politician of the French National Coalition Marine Le Pen and the Prime Minister of Italy Giorgia MeloniBauvois enumerates.
– In my opinion, it is quite clear that there are racist elements in the theory. If a politician says that, for example, blacks or refugees are planning to replace the original population, meaning a predominantly white one, then it is a racist conspiracy theory, says Bauvois.
Fox News echoed the theory in the US
The population exchange theory has also made headlines in connection with far-right terrorist acts, such as the mass shooting in Buffalo in May 2022 in the United States. Before doing it the shooter reportedly wrote the manifestoin which he referred to population change.
In the United States, a prominent propagator of the theory has been the former anchor of Fox News, a news channel favored by conservatives Tucker Carlson.
Carlson’s talk show ran on the channel from 2016 to April 2023, and during that time he had time to stir up a threatening image of population change in over 400 episodes. The program had approximately three million viewers per episode.
Experts have said that Carlson’s speech and Buffalo massacre would have a connection.
Carlson claims that population exchange is part of the Democratic Party’s bid for power.
Among other things, he has said that the Democrats want to replace the American population “with more obedient voters from developing countries” to stay in power.
The Washington Post points out that in reality the biggest demographic threat to the Republican Party is young voters who favor the Democrats.
Also a term of population exchange among politicians of the Republican Party has come becoming an increasingly acceptable part of language use.
For example, the Republican leader of the Senate Mitch McConnell refused after the Buffalo shooting to condemn or deny the population exchange theory, despite being repeatedly asked about it at the press conference.
The conspiracy has also gained a foothold in the thinking of Americans.
Released in 2022 survey according to 61 percent of Trump voters and 53 percent of Fox News viewers believe the theory.
The second, published in 2021 the survey According to the report, a significant number of Americans believe that people who come to the United States do not move to the country only in the hope of a better life – but because foreigners want to influence American elections and the way of life.
Same threat, different enemy
The thoughts of people who believe in conspiracies have also been investigated in Finland.
Finscin, a joint project of several Finnish universities in survey research 10.2 percent of respondents said they believe that the white population of Western countries is being deliberately replaced by people from the Middle East and Africa.
Dissertation researcher Niki Sopanen according to which it matters what kind of terms politicians use and how.
Conspiracy theories like population exchange resonate with the electorate when politicians manage to package people’s concerns about social change into “inviting packages”, he says.
Could the idea of population change be normalized in the Finnish political debate as well?
– Even though there are few immigrants in Finland, it is possible that the invasion narrative cherished by conservative nationalists will become mainstream, no matter what name it goes by in the future, Sopanen from the University of Helsinki, who is familiar with conspiracies, thinks.
According to researcher Bauvois, the use of the term in Finland differs from the discussion in France and the United States in that the image of the enemy is different.
In France, the population exchange theory was first used against Muslims. After that, it expanded to include immigrants from Africa and eventually also from the Middle East. In the United States, blacks and Mexicans are especially targeted.
In Finland, for example, anti-immigration groups and far-right politicians started using the term after the 2015 refugee crisis, says Bauvois.
– You could say that the content of the theory is the same regardless of the country, but the “enemy” changes depending on the context, he says.