European New Right

The European New Right (ENR) is a far-right movement originating in France in the 1960s. Its proponents are involved in a global "anti-structural revolt" against modernity and post-modernity, largely in the form of loosely connected intellectual communities that strive to diffuse a similar philosophy in European societies.[1]

ENR leaders are generally opposed to liberalism, individualism, egalitarianism, and the nation-state. They endorse a communitarian and organicist world view, and advocate the concept of ethnopluralism, which they describe as a global project where collective identities would coexist peacefully within separated geographical spaces.[2] They do not share, however, a standard and collective political agenda. Instead, ENR leaders promote their ideas via a common "metapolitical" practice of politics, in order to eventually achieve cultural hegemony within Europe.[3]

Although the extent of the relationship is debated by scholars, the European New Right has influenced the ideological and political structure of the Identitarian Movement.[4][5][6] Part of the alt-right also claims to have been inspired by Alain de Benoist's writings, arguably the most influential figure of the movement.[7]

History

The European New Right (ENR) emerged in France from the Nouvelle Droite, an intellectual movement linked to the ethno-nationalist think tank GRECE, established in 1968 by Alain de Benoist and Dominique Venner. The original prominence of the French nucleus has declined over the decades, and the movement now appears in the form of a European network of various groups, parties and intellectuals, all sharing ideological similarities and affinities between each other.[2] Among them are the Neue Rechte in Germany, New Right (defunct) in the United Kingdom, Nieuw Rechts (defunct) and Deltastichting in the Netherlands and Flanders, Forza Nuova in Italy, Imperium Europa in Malta, Nova Hrvatska Desnica in Croatia, or Noua Dreapta in Romania.[8] In Italy, the Nueva Destra emerged from the initiative of a group of young members of the neo-fascist party Italian Social Movement.[9]

Ideology

The ENR has gone through several re-synthesis since its emergence in the late 1960s. The last attempt at a common doctrine dates back to the manifesto "The New Right in the year 2000". Its leading ideas were "the critique of liberalism and of the commodification of the world; the rejection of individualism; an attachment to an organicist and communitarian view of society; the rejection of egalitarianism and of the various forms of monotheism from which it arose; the promotion of well-rooted collective identities and of the "right to difference"; the rejection of the nation-state as a form and the promotion of a federalist model that applies the principle of subsidiarity; and a view of international relations based on the idea of a multi-polar world in which Europe would be endowed with its own nationhood, apart from American omnipotence, which is designated the chief enemy of the European peoples."[2]

According to Jean-Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg, the essential idea of the ENR is their rejection of the "eradication of cultural identities", caused in their views by the principles of standardization and egalitarianism contained in the idea of human rights, what Alain de Benoist calls the "ideology of sameness".[2] New Right thinker Tomislav Sunić emphasized Oswald Spengler's influence in the ENR, especially his assumption that mankind does not exist as such, that "each culture passes through various cycles", and that the concept of universal history is a non-sense, as there are only a "plurality of histories and their unequal distribution in time and space."[10]

ENR thinkers believe that the West is living in an "interregnum" that will give way sooner or later to a new era. According to Roger Griffin, they developed in response a worldview founded on a "maze-way re-synthesis" of old and new ideological and ritual elements, combined in a "palingenetic metanarrative". The current political order is portrayed as needing to be abandoned or purged of its impurity, so that the "redemptive community" can leave the phase of liminal crisis to usher in the new era. Additionally, ENR leaders frequently invoke a legendary and mythical past they want to symbolically re-ground in the new society about to emerge, not in a spirit of nostalgia for the return of an ancient golden age, but rather "to create a rooted futurity, a new reality re-established on firm metaphysical foundations."[1] This idea is particularly embodied in the concept of archeofuturism promoted by Guillaume Faye.[11]

Some ENR thinkers, part of a Völkisch leaning in the movement,[12] focus on the ethnic concept as the core dimension of "identity". This has led to violent rejection of the "difference", Faye calling for a "total ethnic war",[13] and Pierre Vial for an "ethnic revolution" and a "war of liberation".[12][14]

Critics

Roger Griffin and Tamir Bar-On argue that the ENR is at the origin of a subtle strategy to reinvent the general framework of fascism while preserving the original fascist world view and ideas. They compare the metapolitical stance of ENR leaders to the strategy advocated by neo-fascist thinker Maurice Bardèche in his 1961 book What is Fascism?, where he averred that fascism could survive the 20th century in a new guise:[15]

The famous fascist methods are constantly revised and will continue to be revised. More important than the mechanism is the idea which fascism has created for itself of man and freedom. […] With another name, another face, and with nothing which betrays the projection from the past, with the form of a child we do not recognize and the head of a young Medusa, the Order of Sparta will be reborn: and paradoxically it will, without doubt, be the last bastion of Freedom and the sweetness of living.

— Maurice Bardèche, Qu’est-ce que le fascisme? (Paris: Les Sept Couleurs, 1961), pp. 175–176.

References
  1. Bar-On 2016, p. xiii.
  2. Camus & Lebourg 2017, pp. 123–124
  3. Camus & Lebourg 2017, pp. 120–121
  4. Camus 2019, p. 73: "Since the early 1990s, the French New Right has been influential beyond France, especially in Italy, Germany, and Belgium, and has inspired Alexander Dugin in Russia. Part of the American radical Right and “Alt Right” also claims to have been inspired by de Benoist’s writings. Although this is questionable, de Benoist and Dominique Venner are also seen as the forefathers of the “identitarian” movement in Europe."
  5. Teitelbaum, Benjamin R. (2017). Lions of the North: Sounds of the New Nordic Radical Nationalism. Oxford University Press. p. 46. ISBN 9780190212599.
  6. Hentges, Gudrun, Gürcan Kökgiran, and Kristina Nottbohm. "Die Identitäre Bewegung Deutschland (IBD)–Bewegung oder virtuelles Phänomen." Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen 27, no. 3 (2014): 1-26. Read online (pdf)
  7. Camus 2019, p. 73.
  8. Minkenberg, Michael (2000). "The Renewal of the Radical Right: Between Modernity and Anti-modernity". Government and Opposition. 35 (2): 170–188. doi:10.1111/1477-7053.00022.
  9. Casadio 2014.
  10. Camus 2019, p. 81.
  11. François, Stéphane (2019). "Guillaume Faye and Archeofuturism". In Sedgwick, Mark (ed.). Key Thinkers of the Radical Right: Behind the New Threat to Liberal Democracy. Oxford University Press. p. 94. ISBN 978-0-19-087760-6.
  12. Zúquete, José Pedro (2018). The Identitarians: The Movement against Globalism and Islam in Europe. University of Notre Dame Pess. ISBN 9780268104245.
  13. Bar-On, Tamir (2014). "A Response to Alain de Benoist". Journal for the Study of Radicalism. 8 (2): 141. doi:10.14321/jstudradi.8.2.0123. ISSN 1930-1189. JSTOR 10.14321/jstudradi.8.2.0123.
  14. Shields, James G. (2007). The Extreme Right in France: From Pétain to Le Pen. Routledge. p. 148. ISBN 9781134861118.
  15. Bar-On 2016, p. xi.

Bibliography
  • Bar-On, Tamir (2013). Rethinking the French New Right: Alternatives to Modernity. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-96633-1.
  • Bar-On, Tamir (2016). Where Have All The Fascists Gone?. Routledge. ISBN 978-1351873130.
  • Camus, Jean-Yves; Lebourg, Nicolas (2017). Far-Right Politics in Europe. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674971530.
  • Camus, Jean-Yves (2019). "Alain de Benoist and the New Right". In Sedgwick, Mark (ed.). Key Thinkers of the Radical Right: Behind the New Threat to Liberal Democracy. Oxford University Press. pp. 73–90. ISBN 9780190877613.
  • Casadio, Massimiliano Capra (2014). "The New Right and Metapolitics in France and Italy". Journal for the Study of Radicalism. 8 (1): 45–86. doi:10.14321/jstudradi.8.1.0045. ISSN 1930-1189. JSTOR 10.14321/jstudradi.8.1.0045.
  • Copsey, Nigel (2013). "Au Revoir to "Sacred Cows"? Assessing the Impact of the Nouvelle Droite in Britain". Democracy and Security. 9 (3): 287–303. doi:10.1080/17419166.2013.792249.
  • Marchi, Riccardo (2016). "The Nouvelle Droite in Portugal: a new strategy for the radical right in the transition from authoritarianism to democracy". Patterns of Prejudice. 50 (3): 232–252. doi:10.1080/0031322X.2016.1207924. ISSN 0031-322X.
  • Taguieff, Pierre-André (1994). Sur la Nouvelle Droite: jalons d'une analyse critique. Descartes et Cie. ISBN 978-2910301026.
  • Woods, Roger (2007). Germany's New Right as Culture and Politics. Springer. ISBN 978-0230801332.

Primary sources
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