They begin with words.
Words change the way a society sees part of itself. They redefine who belongs and who is viewed as an outsider. That is why the growing use of the term "remigration" in European political discourse should concern everyone, regardless of political affiliation.
Before asking whether such a policy is feasible, we should first ask what it actually means.
Remigration—for whom?
Listening to much of Europe's emerging right-wing rhetoric, the answer appears increasingly clear. The issue is not immigration as such. Immigrants from China, India, or Latin America are rarely presented as the central problem. Instead, the focus overwhelmingly falls on people from Muslim-majority countries. The debate, therefore, is no longer simply about immigration; it is about an alleged incompatibility between Islam and Western civilization.
Europe undeniably faces serious integration challenges. Pretending otherwise would be intellectually dishonest. Across the continent there are neighborhoods marked by social exclusion, crime, religious radicalization, unemployment, and the failure of integration policies. Ignoring these realities only strengthens political extremism.
But acknowledging these problems is fundamentally different from treating millions of people as a single, inherently suspect group.
This is where history deserves our attention.
In 1940, Nazi Germany developed the so-called Madagascar Plan, a proposal to deport Europe's Jewish population to the island of Madagascar, effectively treating an entire people as a geographical problem to be removed. The plan proved unworkable for military and logistical reasons. It was later abandoned, and the regime ultimately implemented the "Final Solution," leading to the systematic murder of six million Jews.
Mentioning this episode is not to suggest that contemporary advocates of remigration pursue the same objectives as the Nazi regime. Such a comparison would be historically inaccurate. Rather, it serves as a reminder of a broader lesson: whenever societies begin discussing entire groups of people primarily in terms of removal rather than as individuals with rights, responsibilities, and human dignity, they enter dangerous territory.
History offers other warnings.
In 1492, Spain expelled its Jewish population. More than a century later, it expelled the Moriscos—Muslims who had converted to Christianity. The goal was to create a religiously homogeneous kingdom. The result was immense human suffering and the loss of valuable economic, scientific, and cultural contributions.
In 1923, Greece and Turkey carried out a compulsory population exchange based almost entirely on religion. More than one and a half million people were forced from their homes. It was presented as a permanent solution to ethnic conflict, yet it left deep scars that endured for generations.
In 1947, the Partition of India triggered one of the largest forced migrations in modern history. Millions of Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs crossed newly drawn borders in opposite directions. The promise was peace through separation. The outcome was mass violence, hundreds of thousands of deaths, and millions of refugees.
More recently, during the wars in the former Yugoslavia, Europe witnessed how rapidly multiethnic societies could collapse into brutality. Nationalist rhetoric transformed neighbors into enemies. Ethnic and religious identities became markers of exclusion, persecution, and murder. The Srebrenica genocide remains one of the darkest reminders of how quickly coexistence can unravel.
None of these historical episodes proves that today's Europe is destined to repeat the past. History never repeats itself in exactly the same way.
But it does teach one enduring lesson: societies rarely descend into violence overnight. They get there gradually—through polarization, fear, simplistic narratives, and the progressive dehumanization of those perceived as "the other."
That is what should concern us.
The real danger lies not in a single word but in the simultaneous failure of two opposing approaches.
On one side, immigration that is too often poorly managed, with inadequate border control and unsuccessful integration policies.
On the other, the temptation to answer these failures with slogans that promise the removal of entire communities as though complex social problems could be solved through mass exclusion.
Both approaches feed extremism.
Both deepen fear.
Both weaken the foundations of democratic coexistence.
Europe deserves better.
It needs effective border management, orderly migration policies, clear distinctions between those who have the legal right to remain and those who do not, meaningful integration for those willing to embrace democratic values, and lawful, case-by-case deportation of individuals who have no legal right to stay or who commit serious crimes.
That is the essence of the rule of law: judging people by what they do, not by who they are.
The real question, then, is not whether "remigration" is an effective political slogan.
The real question is whether Europe intends to confront migration with serious, rational, and lawful policies—or whether it will allow the debate to degenerate into a clash of collective identities.
European history does not tell us that the worst is inevitable.
It does remind us, however, that the worst becomes possible when politics stops solving problems and starts dividing humanity into categories deemed incapable of living together.
And that is why a single word can sometimes become the beginning of something far more dangerous.
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