Identitarian Movement rises again. On the backs of genuinely concerned citizens.
The Justice for Prosperity Foundation monitors networks that create, fuel, and instrumentalize social unrest. What we saw in Loosdrecht, Engelen, IJsselstein, and Tilburg over the past few weeks was no surprise. It was a confirmation of something we already saw coming. We already saw how people from outside the community came to stir up local unrest. But now it turns out there is an international ramification behind this: the identitarian movement had not disappeared; it was waiting for its moment.
Demonstrating is highly valued in the Netherlands. Freedom of speech is part of who we are. And that is precisely why it is so disturbing when that voice, the voice of the ordinary citizen, is hijacked by organized extremism. Even more so when this extremism has international ramifications.
In April 2026, residents of Loosdrecht took to the streets on several evenings to protest against a temporary asylum center in their former town hall. The atmosphere was grim. Riot police were deployed. Several evenings escalated into confrontations. The news paints a picture of a local protest. But anyone familiar with how organized actors fuel social unrest recognizes something else.
Among the demonstrators, a banner appeared featuring a yellow lambda on a black background. The same symbol surfaced days later in Engelen, then in IJsselstein, and subsequently in Tilburg. Each time, it belonged to a single organization: Identitair Verzet, or IDV. The Dutch branch of a pan-European far-right network whose French parent organization has been banned by the French government as a private militia, whose Austrian leader Martin Sellner received money from Brenton Tarrant, the man who murdered 51 people in the Christchurch attacks, and whose Dutch founder was convicted for vandalizing a Jewish cemetery with swastikas and the slogan “Juden raus.”
People standing around that banner in Loosdrecht presumably didn’t know that. Certainly not the concerned local residents. That is exactly why this matters.
The Justice for Prosperity Foundation conducts research into societal manipulation: how actors create, fuel, and instrumentalize social unrest, whereby local tensions, genuine concerns, and vulnerable groups are deliberately exploited for political or financial gain. We do not take a position in debates. What we investigate is who causes the unrest, who fuels it, how, and with what business model.
What is the Identitair Verzet (IDV)?
IDV is the Dutch branch of Generation Identity (GI), a pan-European identitarian movement whose French parent organization, Génération Identitaire, was banned by the French government in 2021. The Dutch branch had disappeared from view for years. Now it is back.
The movement originated in France in 2003 and operates in multiple countries under a shared ideology and symbolism: the yellow lambda, borrowed from the Hollywood film 300. The ideological foundation consists of two pillars. The first is the replacement theory, the conspiracy theory that a shadowy elite is deliberately replacing European populations through mass immigration. The second is “remigration,” a euphemistic term for the forced deportation of people based on ethnicity, religion, or skin color.
Despite attempts to normalize the word in public debate, a clear line must be drawn here. The NCTV is also clear on this: in the language of the far right, remigration means deporting millions of people based on ‘race, religion, sexual orientation, or unwelcome views.’
In November 2024, JfP published an extensive study into Génération Identitaire and the way in which the identitarian movement continues to spread its ideology via social media in the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. Our conclusion at the time was already that while the movement had disappeared from view, its networks, language, and narratives remained very much alive and had further entrenched themselves in the public debate. What we are seeing now is the next step. That report can be read here.
The founder of IDV was convicted in 2001 for his role in the destruction of a Jewish cemetery in Oosterhout. Gravestones were smashed, and swastikas were spray-painted. The slogans left behind were “Juden raus” and “Wir sind zurück.” Since then, he has consistently operated under pseudonyms, at least six of which have been documented. Before IDV, he was active with the neo-Nazi party CP’86 and the far-right extremist organization Voorpost.
During its active years, IDV occupied mosques in Leiden (2015), Dordrecht (2015), Amsterdam (2017), and Venlo (2017). The organization ran a front organization called Pro Patria, which organized a demonstration in The Hague’s Schilderswijk in 2014 with a neo-Nazi security force, presented to the public as concerned citizens opposing antisemitism. Several members participated in international training camps of Génération Identitaire in France, confirmed by then-Minister of Justice Grapperhaus in response to parliamentary questions in 2019. Twitter removed IDV in 2020 for spreading violent extremism.
By 2023, the organization had virtually come to a standstill, including the Telegram channel. The website went offline. Anyone who did not actively follow the movement might think that IDV had disappeared.
It did not.
The relaunch
The relaunch began in recent weeks. A new IDV page appeared on Facebook on March 13, 2026. One of the prominent leaders from previous periods personally posted the launch flyer: “Here is the kick-off of the campaign!! Please share.” (Translated) Within hours, the post was further disseminated, including by key figures from Defend United and Defend Netherlands.
JfP closely monitored the build-up of the infrastructure. On April 18, the domain identitair.nl was registered. Three days later, idverzet.nl followed. Analysis of the registration data shows that both domains run on an identical German hosting infrastructure: the same registrar, the same reseller, and the same outgoing mail server address. This points to one and the same administrator. The double registration within three days is consistent with a coordinated relaunch.
After the online launch, offline promotion got underway, for example with banners.
The familiar IDV logo surfaced. On April 20 in Engelen: “Stop police violence against our own people.” The same banner appeared the next day in Loosdrecht. On April 24 in IJsselstein: “No barbarian goats on our fields.” On April 30 in Tilburg: “No emergency shelter, our own people first,” this time prominently featuring the IDV logo and the website URL. (Translated banner texts)
The banner actions were not spontaneous. They were filmed and immediately distributed by Defend members via various private channels. On every occasion, the camera was focused tightly on the logo. Each action was staged for the camera and then propelled out into the world via an existing network.
Who is behind it
JfP has definitively identified multiple key figures in the relaunch based on source analysis, network research, and field research at the demonstrations themselves. We describe three of them here based on their public roles and behavior, not to harm individuals, but because their actions provide insight into how this relaunch operates: who runs the organization, who takes to the streets, and how the connection with Defend is established. We use initials for all three because our focus is on the phenomenon and the functioning of the network, not on publicly damaging individuals.
F.v.W. is one of the driving forces behind the relaunch. She has a documented history of more than twenty years in the identitarian milieu. This can also be verified in the Kafka research archive and previous media coverage. She personally posted the launch flyer on March 13, hosted the livestream from Loosdrecht, uses the IDV banner as her Facebook cover photo, and responded to criticism regarding her role in the banners with a public claim to ownership. She embodies the revival of IDV.
R.S. operates under a pseudonym and does not wish to appear in the public eye himself. Nevertheless, JfP has been able to identify him with certainty. Not only is his current role striking, but also the path leading up to it. A few years ago, he was active in a local initiative dedicated specifically to connection, tolerance, and community. Today, he appears in livestreams of fellow activists wearing IDV symbols and posting openly racist statements. It reveals something concrete about what the services describe as the normalization of far-right ideology: people who for years simply moved in the public space are now connecting with a European identitarian network. From the IDV communication captured by JfP, many hundreds of messages documented covering the period from 2018 to 2025, it becomes clear which international lines the organization has: Martin Sellner, the Austrian figurehead of the identitarian movement (see: further in this article), Schild & Vrienden from Belgium, the British far-right group Britain First, and Vlaams Belang. Those lines are now being reactivated.
P.v.V. is another key figure within Defend Netherlands. He was present at several banner actions and at the protests in Loosdrecht. He is the operational link between IDV’s identitarian infrastructure and Defend’s street mobilization network.
Behind these three is a broader support layer of Defend members and related groups. Defend Den Bosch and Women’s Defend Den Bosch actively filmed and distributed the banner actions, with the camera deliberately aimed at the IDV logo. Strijders Nederland shared the banner via its own channels. J.d.B., long active in the identitarian scene, posted photos of the banner in Loosdrecht with the text “and onwards!!”, liked by Defend Den Bosch leader M.M. and other Defend members. A Defend member responded to the first IDV Facebook post with: “I do have respect for Identitair Verzet, better that they rise up again and grow.” That same member previously posted the code 1488 on his own profile. That is no obscure reference: 14 stands for the “fourteen words,” a neo-Nazi slogan, and 88 stands for “Heil Hitler.”
The international network that IDV connects to
IDV is not a Dutch exception. It is the Dutch link in a cross-border network of far-right organizations that are banned in multiple European countries, are under the surveillance of intelligence services, or have been directly linked to political violence and terrorism.
France. Génération Identitaire, the French parent organization, was banned and dissolved by government decree on March 3, 2021. The French state classified the organization as a private militia inciting hatred, violence, and discrimination. It was not an administrative measure on the fringes of the law: the highest administrative court, the Conseil d’État, confirmed the ban in May of that year. Minister Darmanin called the organization “the armed wing of extremism and xenophobia.” Dutch IDV members participated in its training camps before the ban.
Austria and Germany. The Austrian branch is under permanent surveillance by the intelligence service. Haar leider Martin Sellner ontving een donatie van €1.500,- van Brenton Tarrant, de man die in maart 2019 51 mensen vermoordde in twee moskeeën in Christchurch. De twee onderhielden maandenlang e-mailcontact. Diezelfde Sellner presenteerde het “remigratie”-plan op de beruchte Potsdam-bijeenkomst van november 2023, waaraan AfD- en CDU-vertegenwoordigers deelnamen, en ontketende daarmee massale protesten in Duitsland. Sellner heeft een inreisverbod voor de Verenigde Staten, het Verenigd Koninkrijk en tijdelijk ook Duitsland. De Duitse tak wordt door het Bundesverfassungsschutz, de Duitse binnenlandse inlichtingendienst, geclassificeerd als vaststaand rechtsextremistisch sinds 2019, waarmee alle beschikbare inlichtingenmiddelen mogen worden ingezet om de beweging te observeren.
The term “remigration” appeared in the IDV Telegram archive starting in 2022. The ideological line continues.
The new IDV Facebook page shared a video by Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, one of the most prominent far-right figures in Europe. When footage of the riots in Loosdrecht circulated, Robinson amplified it to his followers by stating that protesters were being beaten down for “peacefully protesting against 110 intruders who were dumped in their community.” This is the same framing as the message on the IDV banner in Loosdrecht: “Stop police violence against our own people.” This is no coincidence. IDV deliberately chose a message that could be widely picked up, even outside the Netherlands. Robinson did exactly what IDV intended: converting local footage into international reach.
Het is niet de eerste keer dat Robinson en gelijkgestemde internationale influencers zoals Eva Vlaardingerbroek desinformatie over Nederland verspreiden om spanningen aan te wakkeren. JfP documenteerde eerder hoe zij bewust valse narratieven over Nederland in omloop brachten om onrust te vergroten. Like the Vondelkerk fire. That research can be read here.
The new IDV Instagram account exclusively follows other identitarian movements in Europe. These are not random choices, but show a map of the active nodes of the network as it stands today.
How the message works
The banner that appeared in Loosdrecht did not say “send migrants back” or “close the borders.” It said: “Stop police violence against our own people.”
That is a deliberate and well-known choice. It positions the protesters as victims of state terror. It is a message that can be picked up by people who have no affinity whatsoever with identitarian ideology. And it is designed to be spread internationally. And it was. Robinson’s post used virtually the same wording and framing.
This is how these networks work. The street action generates images and emotion; that material is subsequently picked up by figures with much larger platforms, and local residents coming to the protest do not know that they are standing next to an IDV activist. They are standing next to someone with a Defend flag. Or with a weird yellow-and-black logo. But GI is there with that too. And they are filming along. And through those images, the local protest becomes propaganda material for a widely branched network that runs from Loosdrecht via Vienna to London.
May 9 in Ter Apel
A demonstration has been announced for this coming May 9 in Ter Apel, a location that has long been symbolic in the Dutch asylum debate. For IDV, it is more than that: it is the first occasion where the recently relaunched organization will stand publicly in one place together with Defend groups. A first real test of the cooperation that JfP has been mapping out over the past few weeks. Multiple groups have announced their presence. A counter-demonstration has also been announced.
The combination of organized far-right groups, a counter-mobilization, and the heated atmosphere following weeks of unrest poses a real risk of escalation. Ter Apel therefore calls for both police attention and public vigilance.
Finally
The relaunch of IDV is a coordinated activation of a known extremist organization, led by people with decades of experience in far-right activism, during a period of political and social tension surrounding asylum reception.
The people who protested in Loosdrecht are angry about something that is real to them. That anger is understandable, but it is also being instrumentalized. IDV is not present to represent community interests. IDV is present to nationally integrate an international extremist network at a moment of local tension and to use that moment to grow, recruit, and normalize.
That normalization is receiving top-down backing. FvD politician De Vos traveled to Loosdrecht to offer support to the demonstrators, without mentioning who stood between them or prioritizing support for the democratic process. When politicians provide cover in this way for violence and protests where extremist organizations are active, it increases the space for the networks described in this article. Local government deserves support. The aggressors do not. That distinction is a political responsibility.
The services have been warning for years about precisely this mechanism: how language and messages that once belonged to the extreme margins migrate to the center of public debate, thereby lowering the threshold for making contact with the groups that carry them. JfP also described this in detail in the 2024-rapport on Génération Identitaire. That is what is happening now. IDV does not operate independently of Defend, but alongside it. And anyone who follows these networks knows: the next step is that it will be absorbed into them.
Ordinary citizens who take to the streets out of genuine concern have no idea that they are being used by an international far-right network that deliberately exploits them.
Justice for Prosperity investigates societal manipulation: how actors create, fuel, and instrumentalize social unrest for political or financial gain. That is what we are seeing here. We continue to monitor the relaunch of IDV and the broader networks surrounding it, and will publish additional findings as the investigation progresses. If you have relevant information, please contact us securely via https://safesend.justiceforprosperity.org/#/
