Preventing and countering hate speech: Why "remigration" is a word that should not enter public debate

The word remigration appears increasingly across debates on migration. We have encountered across Europe as it is increasingly becoming a staple narrative of the far right. The event Preventing and countering hate speech. Why “remigration” is a word that should not enter public debate was organised as a response to a number of demonstrations organised in a number of European countries including the UK.

Our CMD team were invited to organise a talk and a public workshop open to all citizens of the municipality of Brescia in Italy, promoted by the Interinstitutional Forum for the Prevention and Countering of Hate Speech of Brescia.

Just a few weeks prior to the event, the group “Remigration and Reconquest” attempted to organise a march in Brescia to promote the concept of remigration: an idea that emerged in French New Right identitarian circles in the early 2000s and has since been taken up by radical groups of the European far right, with the explicit aim of forcibly expelling migrants and residents of foreign origin, including those who are long-term and well-integrated.

Following the refusal by the police authorities on public order grounds, the organisers nevertheless held a rally in a peripheral area of the city. In the days that followed, civil society responded with a large, well-attended demonstration, clearly reaffirming that Brescia is an antifascist and anti-racist city.

But this episode is not isolated. In recent days, eleven Italian citizens have informed the Supreme Court of Cassation of their intention to promote a popular legislative initiative entitled “Remigration and Reconquest”, which promotes the establishment of a national remigration programme and a fund to promote “Italian birth rates”. This proposal, launched at last year’s Remigration Summit in Milan, is now being taken up by sectors of the parliamentary right, which are progressively normalising the term in political and institutional discourse.

Although it has no realistic chance of becoming law, as it is manifestly unconstitutional, this initiative has a clear objective: to further radicalise the debate on migration and citizenship and to make a project of systematic exclusion sayable and socially acceptable. A project that speaks of: mass expulsions, selective revocation of citizenship, deportations described as “voluntary” but imposed through economic and legal pressure, legal separation between alleged “true citizens” and second-class citizens.

This is not merely a disturbing return to the categories and imaginaries of fascist and Nazi racism, but a direct attack on people, social cohesion, and the rule of law. Remigration is a political tool that fuels fear, stigmatisation, and social conflict in order to weaken the foundations of democracy. For this reason, it is urgent to call things by their proper name, to expose what lies behind the word “remigration”, and to firmly oppose any attempt to normalise its use, preventing a language of exclusion and discrimination from becoming acceptable in public debate.