The term red-green-brown alliance, originating in France, refers to the alleged alliance of Leftists (red), Islamists (green), and Ultranationalists (brown). The term is often used in a broad sense to refer to antisemitic and/or anti-American anti-western views shared by disparate groups and movements.
French essayist Alexandre del Valle wrote of "une alliance idéologique ... rouge-brun-vert" (a red-green brown ... ideology) in an April 22, 2002 article in the newspaper Le Figaro, and wrote "Rouges-Bruns-Verts, l'étrange alliance", in a January 2004 article in the magazine Politique Internationale.
Del Valle's conceptual rendering of Islamist ideological trends appears to be based, at least partially, on earlier writings in which he had charged the United States and western Europe with favouring the "war machine" of "armed Islamism" via its funding of the Afghani mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, which helped future enemies of the West. . In 2010, Del Valle published in Italy an essay entitled "Rossi, Neri, Verdi: a convergenza degli Estremi opposti" (Red, Black, Green: The meeting of extreme opposites.)
The later popularity of the red-green-brown theory (and its various permutations) derives mainly from a speech given by Roger Cukierman, president of the French Jewish organization CRIF, to a CRIF banquet on January 25, 2003, and given wide circulation by a January 27/28 2003 article in Le Monde. Cukierman used the French term "alliance brun-vert-rouge" to describe the antisemitic alignment supposedly shared by "an extreme right nostalgic for racial hierarchies" (symbolized by the color brown), "an extreme left [which is] anti-globalist, anti-capitalist, anti-American [and] anti-Zionist" (red), and followers of José Bové (green).