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Identitarianism is a white supremacist belief system, originating in France in the 1970s and 1980s that takes inspiration from the works of Alain de Benoist, and the 1973 dystopian novel, Le Camp des saints (Camp of the Saints), which depicted a horde of South Asian immigrants raping and murdering their way through France with the intent of destroying Western civilization and making it their new home. Identitarianism’s core tenet is the white supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory that contends that white people are purposely being “replaced” in their home countries with immigrants and refugees, with the plot often being laid at the feet of “globalists” or Jews.
For some time, white supremacists have been warning of an ongoing “white genocide,” claiming that changing demographics in the Western world are part of a plot to dilute the power of white people in what they see as their homelands. The “Great Replacement” version of this idea was threshed out in Frenchman Renaud Camus’ 2011 book Le Grand Remplacement (the Great Replacement), hence the name. Given their belief that immigrants are an existential threat to white people, Identitarians repeatedly target Muslim and immigrant populations for destroying white, European culture. Identitarians exist in many countries, but were formally organized into the the youth movement Generation Identity (GI), first founded in France and Germany, to counter this supposed replacement with calls for “remigration,” meaning ethnically cleansing people of non-European descent en masse back to their supposed home countries.
Identitarianism is a form of white supremacism that is based on an idea of “ethnopluralism,” which views ethnic groups as fundamentally unable to coexist due to innate “cultural” and other differences, thus justifying their separation. As opposed to neo-Nazis, Identitarians are less overtly influenced by antisemitic narratives, though some do blame Jews for the “Great Replacement” and some have links to neo-Nazi movements, and more by the anti-Muslim movements and propaganda that arose out of the post-9/11 era, which, to them, represents the fundamental adversary to “European civilization” as a whole. Although these young radicals hold training camps for boxing and MMA training and sometimes engage in violence, they are more often involved in what they call “metapolitics,” influencing public opinion through social media, slick videos, rallies, conferences, protests, and party politics.
Regardless of their political tactics, the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory is inherently dangerous, having inspired mass murders in Canada, New Zealand, Germany, Norway, and multiple mass shootings in the United States, including Pittsburgh and El Paso, and more recently, Buffalo and Jacksonville, Florida. These attacks have targeted multiple communities including Jews, Muslims, Latinos and Black people. The Christchurch, N.Z., shooter, responsible for the murder of 51 Muslims and the attempted murder of another 40 at a mosque in 2019, made a donation to the transnational movement Generation Identity (GI). In 2011, Norwegian neo-Nazi Anders Breivik was influenced to commit his mass-shooting and bombing by his belief in an earlier iteration of the replacement narrative, the “Eurabia” conspiracy theory, which led him to believe that “Islamization” could only be defeated with violence.
Over the past two decades, Identitarianism has become the preeminent white supremacist belief system, originating from French and German actors. The “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory has been mainstreamed by far-right politicians, in France by Éric Zemmour and Marion Maréchal Le Pen, now leaders of the far-right party Reconquête (Reconquest). A large percentage of the French population now claims to see the “Great Replacement” as a problem. A well-organized Identitarian movement of activist organizations, such as Génération Identitaire (Generation Identity), has developed and spread Identitarianism to the rest of Europe, and inspired the positions of the many newly ascendant far-right political parties such as Italy’s Lega (The League), Belgium’s Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest), and Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany). In the U.S. many prominent Republican elected officials have used the “Great Replacement “ language in their campaigns.
While the group GI was officially dissolved by the French government in 2021, adherents are under surveillance in Germany, and its symbols have been banned in Austria, this hasn’t stopped Identitarian activities across Europe. As outlined in our most recent report, GI influencers have seen their online followings grow, and a number of new Identitarian organizations have surfaced on mainstream social media platforms.
Here are a few prominent Identitarians spreading the movement’s ideas.
Thaïs d’Escufon
Anne-Thaïs du Tertre d’Escoeuffant, (age 24), better known to the public as Thaïs d’Escufon, is a young French Identitarian activist from the Toulouse area known for being one of the most recognizable faces of the movement today. Most of d’Escufon’s public beliefs are in line with those of the Identitarian movement. When speaking on the outbreak of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, for example, she wrote on Telegram, “let’s not forget that the great replacement is THE REAL subject which already has a concrete and direct impact in our daily life in a sure way.”
D’Escufon got her start in far-right politics when she joined the antisemitic, monarchist organization Action Française (French Action). Around the time she was studying for her licence (bachelor’s degree) in literature and foreign languages around 2014 to 2016, she joined the local chapter of the Les Identitaires youth group, Génération Identitaire (Generation Identity, GI). Some of her GI comrades were known for violence, including several who attacked a procession of Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) in February 2019. In 2018, she replaced Anaïs Lignier as the national spokesperson for Génération Identitaire and appeared to remain in that position until the group’s dissolution by the French state in 2021. During her tenure, she participated in a number of protest events, including the infamous protest against the NGO SOS Méditerranée, and the Justice Pour Adama collective ,where the group hung a banner reading “Justice for the victims of anti-White racism” on the roof of a building in Paris, overlooking social justice protesters. She also regularly went to the borders of France to prevent the entry of migrants.
As spokesperson for Génération Identitaire, d’Escufon became a recognizable face of the movement especially after being invited on a range of far-right media platforms, such as Boulevard Voltaire, TV Libertés, Sud Radio,andLivre Noir. It was not, however, until she was brought onto a show on several occasions with a massive audience, C8’s Touche Pas à Mon Poste! (Don’t Touch My Television), hosted by Cyril Hanouna, that she became a household name. On one occasion, she was invited on the show after claiming to be an alleged victim of a home invasion and sexual assault in Lyon in early December 2021, and given that the perpetrator was, according to her, of “Tunisian” origin, used the opportunity to paint all immigrants from the Maghreb with a broad brush and call for their expulsion.
In 2021, both Génération Identitaire and d’Escufon ran into legal troubles. After she posted a video at the Col du Portillon on the French-Spanish border in which she made racist and denigrating comments about migrants, she was charged, and eventually convicted of public insult, alongside fellow GI member Jérémie Piano, who received a conviction for “provoking racial hatred,” and was fined 3,000 Euros. In March 2021, Génération Identitaire was completely dissolved by the Council of Ministers for “inciting violence and discrimination.” Since then, she and other former GI members co-founded the organization “ASLA: Soutien aux Lanceurs d’Alerte” (Help for Whistleblowers) to provide legal support to Identitarian militants and “reveal all the censorship on immigration and islamization.”
With the slogan “Européenne et fière” (Proud European), d’Escufon has gathered a large following on social media platforms such as YouTube (185,000 subscribers), TikTok (45,000 followers) Telegram (22,200 subscribers), and Twitter (37,000 followers), where she spreads her message to tens of thousands of followers daily. She was twice deplatformed from Twitter for breaking Twitter’s terms of service. On YouTube, she has entrenched herself within the network of online far-right influencers, known colloquially in France as the “Fachosphère,” and has appeared on the broadcasts of Baptiste Marchais and others (See GPAHE’s reporting on Baptiste Marchais here). Since becoming a widely-recognized public figure on social media, she has added an anti-feminist, “trad wife,” defense of the patriarchy to her discussions on “the West,” and taken positions against divorce and OnlyFans, a popular site for sex workers to create content for subscribers. She has also become a central figure in the French Identitarian movement, and regularly attends conferences, and interviews by the major organizations in the movement.
Victor Aubert
Victor Aubert is the leader of the French, far-right Christiana Academia (Christian Academy, CA), founded in 2013 in the wake of the Manif pour tous (demonstration for everyone) protests against gay marriage, and a rising star in the Identitarian movement. Aubert, a teacher at the Institut La Croix des Vents, a private Catholic school in the Sées (Orne) whose curriculum is not recognized by the state, runs Christiana Academia alongside his vice-president Julien Langella, one of the original founders of Génération Identitaire (Generation Identity). Academia Christiana is characterized by the fusion of both French Identitarianism and French Catholic fundamentalist beliefs, seeking to “add a Christian message to the fight for identity” and presents itself as a “think tank,” and “a political training institute.” CA has become a centralizing institution for many French far-right groups.
Academia Christiana is an anti-LGBTQ+ organization. In an article attempting to justify the sexual crimes done to children by the Catholic Church over the past few decades, Langella argues that homosexuals are “one step” away from being pedophiles themselves. They go beyond typical reactionary takes with regards to women’s rights and argue that women should not work and instead stay at home to take care of the family. Academia Christiana’s opposition to abortion is not simply on the grounds that it is state-sanctioned “murder,” but that it is murder of French, non-immigrant children. Academia Christiana’s Catholic nationalism and Identitarian views are fundamentally opposed to republicanism, laïcité (French secularism), and multiculturalism. In interviews with France Info, members have stated that while Academia Christiana has antisemitic members in their ranks, they are “not the majority,” and that the “best regime France had in the 20th century was Vichy,” the Nazi puppet state, “notwithstanding the anti-Jewish laws and the collaboration.” Certain members have also called for others to train with firearms. When asked by France Info, Victor Aubert denied that his members hold the beliefs, and stated that AC was a “training institute that doesn’t call for any armed struggle and is foreign to all obsessions with the Jews.”
While Christiana Academia is not big on social media, with only 9,000 subscribers on Instagram, 8,300 on Facebook, 4,700 on Twitter, and 2,000 on Telegram, they make up for this with their networking, as they act as an organization that unites many of the disparate local Identitarian groups around the country. Each year, Christiana Academia organizes a summer school where members of the French far right gather for lectures, sports, and boxing. In 2022, the group claimed that more than 500 people attended their summer school, and in August 2023 claimed to have brought together between 300 and 600.
Academia Christiana is completely immersed in the Identitarian movement, and often hosts a number of local Identitarian groups such as Tenesoun, An Tour-Tan, Auctorium, and RED Angers, the successor of the group Alvarium that was banned by the state for engaging in violence. Many of the members of these groups attend the Academia Christiana summer schools, while the spokesperson for Alvarium, Jean-Eudes Gannat, listed on the state’s “Fiche S” for individuals suspected of terrorist goals or attacks on state security, has given speeches at their events. Social media personalities Thaïs d’Escufon and Julien Rochedy, both of whom are highly influential in the Identitarian scene, have spoken at AC events, and Aubert has appeared alongside other far-right figures such as Holocaust-denier Alain Soral.
Aubert has appeared on the far-right channel TV Libertés with host Martial Bild, and the broadcasts of the neo-Pétainist group Parti de la France. Academia Christiana is also close to a handful of hard-right politicians as well, such as Jean-Frédéric Poisson, leader of the Voie du People, Bruno Gollnisch, who used to hold positions in the national leadership of the Front National prior to the arrival of Marine Le Pen, and Marion Maréchal Le Pen, a leader of Reconquête. Academia Christiana events often bring together figures from the “intellectual” side of the movement as well, including members of the Institut Iliad (Iliad Institute), public intellectuals, and academics at universities and think tanks across the continent.
Unlike other Identitarian groups, however, Aubert’s organization also brings together elements from the Catholic fundamentalist French far right. Personalities from the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, and the infamous Matthieu Raffray who is close to the Fraternité Saint-Pie X (FSPX), and others, have all taken part in their events. As for activists, Aliette Espieux, the head of Marche Pour La Vie (March for Life), spoke at one of Academia Christiana’s summer schools.
Martin and Brittany Pettibone-Sellner
Austrian Martin Sellner and his American wife Brittany Pettibone-Sellner are both prominent Identitarian influencers,operating out of his home in Vienna, Austria, and across Europe. They married in 2019, a few years after meeting during the racist anti-immigrant “Defend Europe” campaign run by Generation Identity.
Martin Sellner was the de-facto leader and founder of Identitäre Bewegung Österreich (Identitarian Movement Austria, IBÖ), part of the transnational white nationalist movement Generation Identity (GI), until he announced his “retirement” from IB in February 2023 (Sellner claimed that he would concentrate on the “information war” instead). He is a relentless propagator of the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, and uses this racist framework as the basis for his activism. Consistent with the conspiracy theory, Sellner and GI focus primarily on the baseless notion of “Islamization,” the idea that Muslims are taking over the culture of traditionally “white” countries, and purports that all non-white and non-Christian citizens, migrants, or residents should be “remigrated,” or in other words, ethnically cleansed back to their supposed home countries.
Sellner wasn’t always an Identitarian. He once belonged to a neo-Nazi group called “Stolz und Frei” (Proud and Free), and was mentored by Gottfried Küssel, who was imprisoned twice in Austria for “Nazi revivalism.” In 2006, Sellner admitted to sticking a swastika poster on a synagogue in Baden bei Wien, Austria. In 2008, a complaint was submitted against Sellner for weapons possession and for his activity on another neo-Nazi website.
In the 2010s, Sellner shifted his racial activism to the Identitarian movement and began campaigning heavily against Muslims. He claimed that he “left [Nazism] behind a long time ago,” but the overlaps between Identitarians and neo-Nazis are salient, with Sellner and GI having received support from neo-Nazis such as David Duke, who asked on Twitter for donations from his American supporters for the racist anti-migrant GI “Defend Europe” campaign, which involved GI chartering a boat in the Mediterranean to prevent migrants from entering Europe and intercepting humanitarian ships offering aid to migrants in distress. The group even attempted, unsuccessfully, to stop a Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) ship from embarking on a rescue mission. The white supremacist website American Renaissance, which also spreads the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, wrote an article featuring Sellner in October 2023.
In one 2016 interview with the Huffington Post, Sellner claimed that “Muslims could be in the majority soon,” and emphasized his own beliefs in stopping all immigration and deporting migrants. His new focus on Muslims led him to demonstrate at a number of anti-Muslim events in Europe. In April 2016, he joined other Identitarians at the Green Party Headquarters in Graz, Austria to protest the “Islamization of Europe.” Sellner claimed in an interview about the protest that “Islamization kills.” In the same month, Identitarians, along with Sellner, interrupted a play at the University of Vienna performed by asylum seekers. GI members sprayed fake blood and threw out fliers saying “multiculturalism kills.” In June 2016, Sellner attended and delivered a speech at a GI demonstration in Paris.
Sellner has also collaborated with other far-right and racist organizations. In 2017, he delivered speeches at a rally in Dresden, Germany, alongside PEGIDA, another anti-Muslim organization in Germany. He’s also taken part in racist social stunts with Canadian far-right figure Lauren Southern and now-wife Brittany Pettibone-Sellner and been interviewed by the founder of the anti-Muslim British Defense League (BDL) Tommy Robinson. Sellner most infamously received nearly $1,700 in a donation from the Christchurch shooter in 2018. The shooter also donated money to two other GI branches in France. Sellner and the shooter were reported to have exchanged emails, and even invited each other to visit their home countries. Sellner continues to appear on other far-right media outlets, including Heimatkurier (Homeland Courier), run by the former leader of IB Vienna, Philipp Huemer.
Commenting on the terrorist attack in Christchurch, Sellner tweeted in support of the shooter’s ideology, saying: “The perpetrator of Christchurch wants to blow up the demographic bomb we are sitting on. The mainstream just denies it. The Identitarians want to defuse it.” Unsurprisingly, Sellner’s connections to the shooter led his home to be raided by Austrian authorities in March 2019, although no charges were brought after the search was deemed unlawful. In July 2019, Sellner attempted to take part in what would become a failed demonstration by the Identitarian movement in Halle, Germany. When arriving at the city for their yearly event, Sellner was greeted by around twenty neo-Nazis.
GI was eventually dissolved by the French government in 2021, but that didn’t stop Sellner, nor the remaining GI affiliates in many countries including Austria, from propagandizing and spreading hatred through campaigns both online and off. Sellner continues to have an online presence, including on his English and German-language Telegram channels. He’s been promoting a cruel “remigration” campaign in Uganda, Ghana, and Somalia called “No Way” on his Telegram channel. The campaign bought out ad space on billboards in these countries with messages meant to dissuade residents from migrating to Europe. GI members have also protested drag shows in Vienna and Munich, the latter of which led to the arrests of numerous GI-affiliated individuals. “Great Replacement” rhetoric popularized by groups like GI have seeped into mainstream politics in Germany, with parties like Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, AfD) adopting the term “remigration” in their campaigning.
Sellner’s been deplatformed off Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter following GPAHE’s reporting on Identitarian activity online. Despite this, Sellner’s social media reach still includes over 58,000 subscribers combined on his two Telegram channels and over 800 on Rumble, a video hosting platform. Rumble is also the official platform live-streaming the American Republican primary debates. He also recently created new Instagram accounts, and has a Twitter account labeled as “Satire,” but shares the same posts made on his Telegram channel and links to all his other platforms. In another attempt at ban evasion, Sellner works with his allies to create numerous accounts on YouTube, such as one created in October 2023.
Brittany Pettibone-Sellner began her political activism in 2016. Her Twitter, now deactivated, used to be home to endorsements of the conspiracy-peddling organization Project Veritas, “anti-globalism,” pro-Trump sentiments, “Pizzagate,” and claims that the “MSM” (“mainstream media”) was rigged against the far right. She launched her YouTube channel in February 2017 as a “video podcast,” where she’d go on to make multiple videos with Canadian, anti-Muslim figure Lauren Southern, including one promoting Sellner and the Identitarian “Defend Europe” campaign. She also made a video with Dutch Identitarian Eva Vlaardingerbroek. Brittany’s YouTube presence mirrors that of French Identitarian Thaïs d’Escufon, frequently posting videos about relationships, feminism, and the differences between men and women. Her YouTube channel continues to be monetized by the platform. She has also released two books – What Makes Us Girls: And Why It’s All Worth It, endorsed by Lauren Southern, and Patriots Not Welcome, which was written about on the white supremacist website American Renaissance. Under the pseudonym “T.S. Pettibone,” she’s also written young-adult fiction books, such as Hatred Day.
Brittany was a speaker in the infamous 2017 white supremacist rally in Berkeley, California, which broke out into violence. It was attended by Lauren Southern, the Proud Boys, neo-Nazis, members of the Identitarian group “Identity Evropa,” now rebranded as American Identity Movement (AIM), members of the Three Percenter Militia, and a plurality of Trump supporters supporting the “Muslim Ban,” which Trump recently promised to reinstate if re-elected. Brittany was banned from the UK alongside Martin Sellner and Lauren Southern for a grotesque anti-Muslim “social experiment” where they handed out flyers saying “Allah is a gay god.”
Brittany, who isn’t as overtly active in the Identitarian movement as Martin, has a much larger social media presence. Unlike her husband, she has accounts on mainstream platforms like Instagram (around 30,000 followers), YouTube (177,000 subscribers), and had a Twitter account (over 130,000 followers) until mid-2023. She’s active on alternative platforms such as Telegram (nearly 6000 subscribers), Rumble (around 360 followers), Bitchute (13,500 subscribers), and Odyssey (177,000 subscribers).
Ein Prozent
Ein Prozent, meaning “One Percent,” short for “One Percent of Our Country,” which is the small percentage of Germans they need to support them to make change, is an online Identitarian media outlet founded in 2015 in the wake of the Syrian refugee crisis in Germany. On their website, they tout themselves as a “citizens’ initiative” which “protest[s] against the irresponsible policies of mass immigration.” In reality, they peddle and enable extreme racism. Ein Prozent has historically been well-funded, with the organization receiving donations from almost 50,000 people in 2018, allowing them to spend more than $400,000 on their projects.
Ein Prozent was co-founded by Götz Kubitschek, a former reserve officer in the German army, who served in Bosnia and was almost removed from the military for his involvement in extremist politics. He was initially discharged for participating in “right-wing extremist endeavors,” but the removal was overturned after a court appeal. Kubitschek is also closely affiliated with the far-right political party Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD), the anti-Muslim group PEGIDA, and owns a publishing house (Antaios) that put out a collection of far-right and antisemitic essays. Ein Prozent was also co-founded by fellow Germans Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider, a strong critic of the European Union, and Jürgen Elsässer, editor of the anti-Muslim Compact magazine, who is an admirer of Serbian hardliner Slobodan Milosevic and an outspoken supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It’s reported that the AfD, the Identitarian Movement, and the Institute for State Policy (IfS) all played a role in Ein Prozent’s founding.
The group’s current figurehead, Philipp Stein, entered into politics through the far-right fraternity “Germania,” which is known for its chauvinism. He is also the owner of a small publishing house called “Jungeuropa Verlag,” (Young Europe Publishing House) founded in 2016, which republishes works by the “New Right” and sells historical Nazi material such as “Estonians and Latvians in the Waffen-SS” and “French in the Waffen-SS.” Stein has been documented attending conferences and other events organized by the far-right and neo-Nazis. In 2017, he attended a conference hosted by Blocco Studentesco, which is the youth organization of the Italian neo-Nazi outfit CasaPound. The conference was also attended by members of the Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, French religious nationalist group Action Française, and AfD member John Hoewer, who has spoken at several rallies organized by Ein Prozent. Fellow Germania alum Philip Thaler, who is one of the leaders of the Ein Prozent-funded Identitarian YouTube channel “Laut Gedacht” (Thinking Out Loud), and Michael Schäfer, who used to be a leader in the neo-Nazi group Wernigerode Action Front (WAF) and a member of the German Klu Klux Klan, were also present.
Ein Prozent has mobilized to enable a number of violent and racist activities. In May 2016, a refugee from Iraq living in Arnsdorf, Germany, was shackled to a tree by local vigilantes after allegedly stealing items from a supermarket (A video later circulated showing no robbery had taken place). The vigilantes were criminally accused of deprivation of liberty, and Ein Prozent promptly offered them 20,000 euros for legal support. Both the prosecution and witnesses received death threats, and the victim was soon found dead in a forest nearby, the cause unknown. The trial involving the vigilante group was subsequently, and controversially, suspended due to “insignificance and a lack of public interest.” In 2017, Ein Prozent “monitored” the German general election under the pretense that “electoral flaws would distort the result for the AfD.” In 2020, Ein Prozent held more than 80 right-wing cultural events across Germany. According to their website, they have spent more than two million euros on their activities since they were founded.
Ein Prozent eventually faced some consequences for their hateful advocacy. In 2019, Ein Prozent was suspended from Facebook and Instagram for its links to the Identitarian movement. They sued Facebook, but the case was dismissed by a German court in June on the grounds that “social networks may exclude associations classified by [the networks] as ‘hate organizations.’” Facebook partly relied on the fact that Ein Prozent had financially supported the Austrian chapter of Generation Identity after Facebook listed the group as a hate organization. The court found that Facebook’s determination that Ein Prozent is “aimed at attacking people based on their ethnic origin or religious belief is justified.”
The next year, in 2020, Ein Prozent released the violently racist video game “Heimat Defender” (“Homeland Defender”), a game developed by “Kvltgames” (pronounced “cult games”) that allows players to play various prominent Identitarians as characters such as Martin Sellner, Alexander Kleine (“Alex Malenki,” see below), and “Dark Knight,” who bears a close resemblance to Ein Prozent co-founder Götz Kubitschek, and kills members of antifa. Ein Prozent attempted to dub their hateful game as a “patriotic counter signal” to a perceived leftist shift in the gaming industry, but had their organization finally deplatformed from YouTube and Paypal, after GPAHE alerted the platforms to their activities, because of the game’s violent hatred. They are currently advertising the release of the game’s sequel, made by the same developer, called “The Great Rebellion,” to be released in late 2023. It is supposedly based in the same world, where players will have to battle the same enemy, the “Globohomo Corporation,” a reference to a perceived global conspiracy to promote the so-called “LGBTQ+ agenda” and subsequently force youth to identity as such. The video game already has its own Twitter account with over 1,300 followers and is even verified through Twitter Blue. A teaser for the game is posted on the Kvltgames YouTube channel, which was created in April 2023. Ein Prozent continues to be platformed on Twitter with more than 19,000 followers.
Alexander Kleine (“Alex Malenki”)
Alexander “Malenki” Kleine, a German member of the Identitarian movement since 2015, is best known for the Ein Prozent-funded YouTube channel “Laut Gedacht” (“Thinking out loud”) he created with Philip Thaler that same year. In 2018, Malenki succeeded Tony Gerber as the regional manager of Identitäre Bewegung (Identitarian Movement, IB) Saxony while retaining his position as the self-appointed director of IB Leipzig. As of 2022, he continues to lead IB Saxony.
Before joining IB, Kleine was part of the now-defunct “Elsterfunken Leipzig” project, which had close ties to other neo-fascist groups such as “Die Unsterblichen” (“The Immortals”) and Blocco Studentesco, the youth group of the Italian neo-Nazi party CasaPound. According to his now-deleted Instagram account, Malenki was also a customer of the Nazi store “Fighting Catwalk” in Reudnitz, Germany. Malenki’s own social media revealed in 2017 that he’d been training with the “Imperium Fight Team,” a group led by neo-Nazis that was involved in a number of violent attacks, such as the horrific January 2016 assault in Connewitz, a suburb just outside Leipzig, that left five police officers injured and led to the arrests of 211 far-right extremists. Malenki uses the hashtag “#heldenvonleipzig” (“Heroes of Leipzig”) when glorifying the violence of the neo-Nazis he trained with. Another member of the gym, Thomas Kuhbach, was sentenced to more than two years in prison for his participation in the attack on former Saxon Minister of Justice Sebastian Gemkow’s apartment.
Malenki made his first public activist appearance in 2016 in Halle, Germany, alongside members of Kontrakultur Halle (Counterculture of Halle), a neo-Nazi offshoot of the Identitarian movement, and members of IB Austria, including Martin Sellner, Jörg Dittus and Fabian Lux. Throughout that year, Malenki was involved in banner drops, spraying graffiti (under the pseudonym “rabaukenart”), and manufacturing fake Green Party posters. In 2017, Malenki wore a Nationale Volksarmee (National People’s Army, NVA), the post-WWII German armed forces formed in 1956 consisting of former Wehrmacht officers, uniform to an Identitarian march in Berlin. Neo-Nazi activist Mario Müller, who’s been convicted of several violent offenses, was present at the rally as a cameraman. In 2019, Malenki took part in a failed Identitarian demonstration in Halle, which was attended also by Martin Sellner. Three thousand counter protesters showed up at the “IB house,” where the demonstration was supposed to take place, preventing even Sellner, who finally made it to the house by the evening, from demonstrating.
Malenki founded the company Tannwald Media in 2019 and has been using it to produce content for the right-wing magazine “Krautzone” and the AfD. The company has a small following of just over 100 followers on Twitter and is subscribed to Twitter Blue.
In 2020, Malenki, was a playable character in the previously-mentioned video game “Heimat Defender” (Homeland Defender). Users in the game could commit acts of violence, such as killing members of Antifa.
On his Laut Gedacht YouTube channel, which regularly garnered up to 200,000 views per video, Malenki and Thaler posted numerous videos openly targeting environmental activist Greta Thunberg, including instances where they mocked her voice, spread Identitarian rhetoric, and praised other far-right political figures such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban. The channel attempts to play off their hateful rhetoric by claiming to cover politics in a “satirical and exaggerated way.” Laut Gedacht’s YouTube channel, along with Ein Prozent, was removed for their connections to Heimat Defender, even though YouTube has historically been reluctant to demonetize or deplatform GI accounts. Laut Gedacht are still able to host their videos online, albeit to a much smaller audience, on the German (but registered in Hungary to avoid German hate speech laws) platform Frei3. Videos still available on Frei3 include ones that targeted the LGBTQ+ community, promoted private schooling to avoid “multiculturalism,” videos which claimed that Germany is falling to “Islamization,” a term used frequently by Identitarians to promote the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, and “Jamaicanization,” and one video concerningly called “JEWS IN THE AFD.” Malenki, inexplicably, still has his own YouTube channel with over 18,000 subscribers.
Malenki and Thaler announced that Laut Gedacht would be discontinued in a video posted on September 30, 2021. Since then, Laut Gedacht’s Telegram, Twitter, and Frei3 have all been inactive, but the messages and videos on these platforms are still available. Laut Gedacht’s Patreon is also active, although they haven’t posted a new video since August 2021. According to Patreon, they still have 36 members and earn almost $50/month from memberships. Malenki’s Twitter account continues to be active too, with over 7,000 followers and a blue check, where he spreads hateful Identitarian messaging, such as discussing “remigration,” meaning the forced expulsion of foreigners from Europe, and frequently boosts posts promoting AfD. Malenki has a Telegram channel with over 2,600 subscribers. He uses this channel to share Identitarian content by Martin Sellner and AfD, as well as his own posts.
Philippe Vardon
Philippe Vardon-Raybaud, better known as Philippe Vardon, (age 43), is a French politician from Nice, and long-time leader of the French Identitarian movement who has been a part of many of the major far-right formations over the past two decades. While he does not have a large social media influence, Vardon’s career trajectory has led him to become one of the most influential Identitarians in French far-right party politics today.
Born to a Front National (FN) activist, Vardon joined a number of far-right groups in his student years, such as the Front national de la jeunesse (Front National of the Youth) and the Renouveau étudiant niçois (Niçois Student Renewal), and was close for a time with ex-FN leader Bruno Mégret’s Mouvement national républicain (National Republican Movement). Prior to creating Nissa Rebela, Vardon went through a more extremist stage in his life as a part of the Union de défense des étudiants nationalistes (Defense of Nationalist Students). In 1998, he appeared in a documentary by the Franco-German TV channel Arte among individuals performing Nazi salutes, and cited Belgian Nazi Léon Degrelle as an influence on his ideological development. Around this time, he was also the singer of the Identitarian band Fraction, along with Fabrice Robert.
Vardon began his career as a politician with the Bloc Identitaire (Identitarian Block) which he co-founded with Fabrice Robert in 2003, and led the branch, Nissa Rebela. based in Nice. He stayed in this position for over a decade and made a name for himself by opposing Nice’s mayor on the question of financing Mosques, spreading fear of a “great replacement,” and advocating for “remigration.” This did not translate into electoral success, however, as he received only three percent of the vote in 2008.
Today, his primary issues are pushing back against immigration and fighting the “Islamization” of France. He is the author of the book Imam Estrosi, tomorrow in Nice 20 mosques?, in which he attacks Nice’s leaders for being complicit in the “Islamization” of the city. He also attended international Identitarian events abroad such as the second international meeting of the Portuguese Causa Identitária (Identitarian Cause) in 2008 alongside other leaders of the movement in Spain (Eduardo Nuñez – Asamblea Identitária), France (Fabrice Robert – Bloc Identitaire), and others.
Vardon’s relationship with the Front National, now Rassemblement Nation (National Rally, NR), has always been contentious. After he left the Bloc Identitaire in 2013, he attempted to join the Front National’s umbrella group of far-right parties for elections, the Rassemblement bleu Marine (the Marine Blue Rally, RBM), but was refused by Marine Le Pen, because it hurt her chances at “dédiabolisation” (de-demonization), or cleaning up the Front’s reputation for racism and hate. After Benoît Loeuillet, the head of the FN in Nice, was forced to resign for making revisionist comments about the Holocaust, the FN’s President of the Union of French Jewish Patriots, Michel Thooris, stated that Loeuillet was the “tree that hides the forest,” and referred to Vardon as the “real thinking head of this ideological network.”
The Identitarian wing of the party, however, supported him and brought him into the FN. During the 2015 regional elections, he was elected to the regional council of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur on the list of Marion Maréchal Le Pen, forcing Marine Le Pen to allow him to join the party. He was also given a position as the communications advisor to Nicolas Bay (now with Reconquête) in the European Parliament. Since then, he has operated as a campaign advisor for Marine Le Pen in 2017, deputy campaign manager for the RN in the 2019 European elections, and campaign manager for RN candidate Thierry Mariani in 2021, and run for office himself in the 2017 legislative elections and 2020 municipal elections in Nice under the RN banner.
Whereas most of the Identitarian movement quickly joined Reconquête in the lead up to the 2022 legislative elections, Vardon stayed with the RN, and only left in November 2022 to join the Zemmourists after the RN refused to further support his nomination for elected office. During that time, he was one of the few members to advocate for a broad union of the right with Reconquête, despite the RN party establishment’s reluctance to be associated with the extremist party, which ended up ruffling feathers. Today, he is tasked with helping to run Marion Maréchal Le Pen’s campaign for the European elections. He was recently seen with Marion Maréchal on the small Italian island Lampedusa to campaign against refugees coming into Europe alongside Damien Rieu (ex-GI), Alice Cordier (Némésis), and Erik Tegnér.
