ABSTRACT
One of the most widespread conspiracy theories in contemporary time in Europe is that of Eurabia, the fear of Muslims replacing the Christian population with Islam. The theory is also often named after Renaud Camus’s book from 2011 titled the Le Grand Remplacement (‘The Great Replacement’). Camus argued that European civilisation and identity was at risk of being subsumed by mass migration. This notion of replacement, or white genocide, has echoed throughout the rhetoric of many anti-migrant far-right movements in the West.
Chris Allen (2010) defines Islamophobia as the negative positioning of Islam and Muslims as the ‘other’, posing a threat to ‘us’. The archetypical Muslim in a Western depiction is, indeed, not only portrayed as inferior, but also as being alien. Inhered in the theory is an apocalyptic view of Muslims dominating and destroying the liberal and democratic Europe.
This fear of subversion is, though, only the first part of the full theory. Its completion usually also takes the form of accusing a domestic elite of betraying the good ordinary people into the hands of the external evil. This chapter analyzes the Eurabia theory and maps how mainly populist leaders in Europe have promoted this theory.
