The great settlement theory – why Tunisians fear of being replaced by sub-Saharans?

There is an ongoing plan to replace the Tunisian population with sub-Saharans,’Tunisian President Kais Saied declared in February 2023. These remarks—widelycompared by international media and analysts to Renaud Camus’s ‘GreatReplacement Theory’—sparked controversy both domestically and abroad.Western observers and human rights organizations have since argued thatthe political climate following these statements coincided with a rise in racialtensions and incidents targeting sub-Saharan communities in Tunisia. Thepresident’s idea was not new to locals, as it echoed the narrative of theTunisian National Party, a small anti-immigration group whose claims about a‘resettlement’ master plan gained traction in mainstream discourse by 2022.Informed by theories on conspiracism, this paper looks at the ‘GreatSettlement Theory’ and analyses the country’s post-2011 political and socialenvironment to investigate how this theory emerged and how sub-Saharanmigrants became a stigmatised ‘outgroup’. Through this lens, the studycontributes to a broader understanding of conspiracism and its impact onnational identity formation and intergroup relations in Tunisia.