A major social study commissioned by VRT, known as the “Photo of Flanders,” reveals that a majority of Flemish people are afraid they are being slowly replaced by migrants, with this study now joining similar ones in France and Germany, which reveal serious fear across Europe about the ongoing Great Replacement.
The VRT survey shows that 56 percent of respondents agree with the statement: “I am afraid that Flemish people are slowly being replaced by migrants/people from abroad.”
Within this category, individuals aged 45 to 64 score at 58 percent, while those over 65 score at 59 percent. Teenagers between 12 and 17 years old also show a high level of agreement at 58 percent.
The study also showed that 52 percent of Flemish people are afraid of a mosque being built in their neighborhood. Only 23 percent of Flemish people explicitly say they would be open to a mosque where they live.
Notably, 22 percent of people who say they have no fear of being replaced by migrants also say they would not like to have a mosque in their neighborhood.
According to VRT, the study shows that the fear that “Flemish people will be replaced by migrants” remains great.
Belgium has also been actively erasing traditional signs of Christianity, such as renaming Christmas markets into “winter markets,” which the VRT study indicates has led to divisions in society, especially between older and younger generations.
Discussions surrounding inclusive naming conventions also generate pushback. A majority of Flemish people, at 57 percent, maintain that a Christmas market should simply remain a Christmas market. Resistance to neutral terms like winter market is highest among older demographics, with 64 percent of 45-to-64-year-olds and 67 percent of those over 65 opposing the change. This opposition drops among younger populations, with 41 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds and 45 percent of 25-to-44-year-olds objecting to the replacement of the traditional name.
The Photo of Flanders is an ongoing tracking study that VRT has conducted since 2009 to observe the social themes that concern Flemish residents.
Regarding specific statistics on Islam, 60 percent of Flemish people report feeling concerned about Islam’s presence in Flanders.
This concern peaks among individuals aged 45 to 64 at 65 percent, and among those over 65 at 67 percent, though these percentages have decreased slightly compared to 2023 and 2024.
For youth between the ages of 12 and 17, the figure stands slightly lower at 61 percent, though researchers note an upward trend in this youngest bracket.
Patrick Loobuyck, an ethical philosopher of the University of Antwerp/UGent, states that these anti-diversity figures are “quite high” and Flemish people are struggling with “rapid social changes.”
“They are concerned about themes that are important to our society: who we are, what the future is of Flanders and what is the place of the population that is there today,” said Loobuyck.
“The population has actually changed a lot in recent decades. That diversity is no longer limited to cities, but is felt almost everywhere. People see and feel that, and also notice consequences in education and society.”
Is there a “plan” behind population replacement?
Nevertheless, despite this clear demographic replacement, which is quantifiable and observable, Loobuyck says that “theories” put out by the identitarian right, like the Great Replacement, should not be embraced.
“There is sometimes a pretense that there is a plan behind it, as if elites are consciously allowing mass migration to destroy us. That adds to the uncertainty that is already there,” he said.
Often, this is how the left and the mainstream try to “debunk” the Great Replacement, attaching all kinds of meanings to it that were not behind the original meaning, as articulated by the man behind the original term. For example, claims that Jews are behind the replacement, or that a cabal of elites is behind the replacement, are not actually what Renaud Camus articulated. However, if those opposed to the term can assign extraordinary meanings to it, they can more easily “debunk” whatever it is they say the term is actually supposed to mean.
Nevertheless, in many ways, this has been a “plan.” A UN think tank, for example, has promoted 60 million migrants for Europe by 2050. The UN, which has long advocated for “replacement migration” as a solution to Europe’s aging population, is now warning that Europe will not gain these migrants “if it does not stop being a fortress against immigration.”
Europe’s top leader, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, is calling for more legal migration after already record numbers of immigrants arriving. If anyone is an “elite,” it is most certainly von der Leyen, who wields an enormous amount of power within the EU.
Even for those elites who have routinely been the target of conspiracy theories, such as George Soros, there are quotes on record where he openly promotes and supports mass immigration.
Speaking about former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s effort to control migration, Soros stated that:“[Orbán’s) plan treats the protection of national borders as the objective and the refugees as an obstacle. Our plan treats the protection of refugees as the objective and national borders as the obstacle.”
During the height of the migration crisis, Soros stated: “[Europe] has to accept at least a million asylum-seekers annually for the foreseeable future.”
Soros even proposed in a column he wrote for MarketWatch in 2015 that Europe should take on debt to pay for “surge funding” for refugees and migrants, suggesting that EU member states implement a massive €45 billion spending package. Soros even says in the article that might not be enough, and that spending more would be “justified.”
In the piece, Soros wrote that paying extra money for migrants upfront “would allow us to address the most dangerous consequences of the crisis — including anti-immigrant sentiment in receiving countries and despondency and marginalization among refugees — more effectively.”
Soros also wrote that a large influx of refugees results in panic, which can lead to “expensive and counter-productive measures, like erecting fences and walls.”
There have also been numerous top left-wing politicians who have long promoted mass immigration as a means to gaining more power, while journalists have promoted this very trend as well in thousands of articles and publications.
A German left-wing politician claimed Germany needs more migrants because the "Nazi" Germans are not very good at making babies.
"Every year, more Germans die than are born. Fortunately, this is because the Nazis are not very prolific," said MP Gregor Gysi.
Gysi is a long-time… pic.twitter.com/EDk65oxjHJ
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) January 7, 2025Notably, poll after poll from across Europe shows that a majority of Europeans want an end to mass immigration, and yet, it continues unabated.
A majority or near majority of Europeans feel they are being replaced in their home countries. For example, nearly half of Germans also agree with the statement: “I believe that Europeans are gradually being replaced by immigrants from Africa and the Middle East.”
Meanwhile, in France, 60 percent of voters believe France is witnessing “a replacement of the French population by non-European populations” at a time when immigration has reached record levels.
In Belgium itself, Brussels has already seen massive population replacement, with 72 percent of children and teens in Brussels now having a non-EU migration background, while only 10.5 percent are Belgians of Belgian origin
It can be openly debated what the motive for this mass immigration is, but the reality is that there are many players behind it, all the way from business interests to radical ideologues, which means there is no “single” reason for mass immigration. There are, in short, many motives. There are many actors, and they are not necessarily all working in concert.
🇧🇪 Belgian Justice Minister Annelies Verlinden said in an interview this week you'd have to be a "hero" to go for an evening jog in Brussels these days. pic.twitter.com/1ctwlbUhDT
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) May 21, 2026Nevertheless, the demographic change behind the Great Replacement, which simply states that non-Europeans are replacing Europeans in their native countries, is a statistical reality. There does not have to be a “nefarious” elite that conspires in a room with the blinds drawn, but there is undoubtedly an elite that wants more immigration.
At the same time, the term Great Replacement will continue to be promoted by the right because it is a term that is remarkably apt for the situation that is unfolding. Europe, which values free speech, must allow for an open discussion about the motives, players, and ideological movements behind this demographic development, along with why it is happening, who benefits, and even how it can be reversed. Otherwise, we are quite simply not living in the liberal democracy that the most powerful politicians and journalists in Europe continuously tell us we are living in.
