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The Identitarian movement is a pan-European socio-political movement that started in France in 2002 as a far-right youth movement deriving from the French Nouvelle Droite Génération Identitaire. Initially the youth wing of the anti-immigrant, far-right Bloc Identitaire, it has taken on its own identity and is largely classified as a separate entity altogether with the intent of spreading across Europe. The Identitarian movement advocates rights for members of specific European ethnocultural groups.
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The group is described as being part of the Counter-jihad movement.
In Europe
The main Identitarian youth movement is Generation Identitaire in France, a youth wing of the Bloc Identitaire party.
In 2013 Markus Willinger, born in 1992, who grew up in Schärding, Austria, and now is a student of history and political science at the University of Stuttgart, wrote a manifesto entitled 'Generation Identity: A Declaration of War Against the '68ers', and translated into English from German by Aetius and published in 2013. The book is considered the founding manifesto of the Identitäre Bewegung Österreichs.
In Scandinavia, identitarianism was introduced by the now inactive organisation Nordiska Förbundet (the Nordic Alliance). It then mobilised a number of "independent activist groups" similar to their French counterparts, among them Reaktion Östergötland and Identitet Väst, who performed a number of political actions, marked by a certain degree of civil disobedience. A 24-page first manifesto, aimed at defining the identitarian movement in Northern Europe, was published as Identitet och Metapolitik.
The movement also appeared in Germany converging with preexisting circles centering on the magazine Blaue Narzisse. It has been a "registered association" since 2014. Drawing upon thinkers of the Nouvelle Droite and the Conservative Revolutionary movement such as Oswald Spengler, Carl Schmitt or the contemporary Russian Aleksandr Dugin, it played a role for the rise of the PEGIDA marches in 2014/15. According to Christoph Gurk one of the goals of the Identitarians is to make racism modern and fashionable and they have close connections to Hungarian and Polish Neo-Nazis, according to Anna Thalhammer. There has also been Identitarian collaboration with the white nationalist activist Tomislav Sunić.
The Identitarian movement has a close linkage to members of the German New Right, e.g to its prominent member Götz Kubitschek and his journal Sezession, for which the Identitarian speaker Martin Sellner writes articles.
As their symbol the Identitarian movement uses a yellow lambda sign, a symbol that was painted on the shields of the Spartan Army and is supposed to commemorate the Battle of Thermopylae.
In August 2016 members of the Identitarian Movement of Germany scaled the iconic Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and hung a banner in protest at immigration and perceived Islamisation.
In North America
The term is used in a broader sense by political theorists like Adolph L. Reed, Jr. and Walter Benn Michaels to refer to any philosophy based primarily on social identity. The head of the white nationalist National Policy Institute Richard B. Spencer is a self-described identitarian and promotes white supremacist views.