Jean Thiriart in Cairo and Bagdad

ABSTRACT

In the ‘poor’ result achieved by Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 2007 presidential elections, many commentators saw the demise of the Front National. However, when asked by a journalist whether it was the end of her father's political career, Marine Le Pen smilingly replied: ‘I don't think so. In any case, this is the victory of his ideas!’ In this question and answer lies the whole story of the Front National and its impact on mainstream politics in the past two decades. First, Le Pen's defeat was exaggerated, the same way his victory had been in 2002. What Mondon argues in this paper is that the 2002 presidential elections did act as an ‘earthquake’ within French politics. However, this ‘earthquake’ did not trigger a tsunami of support for Jean-Marie Le Pen, but rather a tidal wave of misinformation and misunderstanding as to the real significance of the election results. By concentrating on the 2002 and 2007 presidential elections, Mondon highlights how this reaction led to the consecration of right-wing populist politics, best exemplified in the landslide election of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. He also provides an insight into the slippery slope Sarkozy's government took after its election, leading to an extremely rightward-leaning 2012 presidential campaign and new heights for the Front National.     

Transnationalism and the French Nouvelle Droite

ABSTRACT

Born in 1968, the French Nouvelle Droite (ND) is a ‘cultural school of thought’. It created a sophisticated European-wide political culture of the revolutionary right in an anti-fascist age; it helped to nurture the discourse of ‘political correctness’ among extreme right-wing political parties, and turned former French ultra-nationalists into pan-Europeanists seeking to smash the egalitarian heritage of 1789. Bar-On argues that the ND world-view has been shaped by transnational influences and that the ND has, in turn, shaped a decidedly more right-wing political culture in Europe in a transnational spirit. The transnational impact of ND ideas is a product of three key factors: first, the intellectual output and prestige of ND leader Alain de Benoist; second, the ‘right-wing Gramscianism’ of the ND's pan-European project that mimicked earlier attempts to unite interwar fascists and post-war neo-fascists into the revolutionary right; and, finally, the political space opened up by the decline of the European left after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Bar-On concludes by considering the influence of the ND on contemporary European politics, as well as the implications for the struggles against racism and the extreme right.     

Introduction: the history of anthropology

Abstract

On 24 January 1999 a new party was formed by the former Front national (FN) number two, Bruno Mégret. The Front national–Mouvement national was subsequently renamed twice: it became the Mouvement national (MN) following the loss of a court case, and later the Mouvement national républicain (MNR). Mégret claims that the MNR is a party not of the extreme right but of the moderate right, labelled by him the ‘national right’. This is a definition with which many political analysts in France seem to have concurred. In this article Bastow analyses the extent to which the characterization is a true one. First, he outlines the context in which Mégret formed the MNR, focusing on his political background and the strategy which he previously sought to impose on the FN. An extended treatment of the policy proposals put forward by the MNR is then followed by an analysis of the extent to which these amount to a break from an ideology which can be identified as extreme right. He concludes by assessing the prospects for the MNR's success.     

The Nouvelle Droite in Portugal: a new strategy for the radical right in the transition from authoritarianism to democracy

Marchi examines how the French Nouvelle Droite (ND) was introduced into Portugal at the end of the Salazarist regime and during the transition to democracy. The relevance of the Portuguese case lies in the fact that the early diffusion of the ND in Europe coincided with the profound crisis of the radical right in Portugal as it faced the liberalization of the authoritarian regime and repression during the revolutionary transition. For that reason the far right in Portugal, in comparative terms, can be seen to have been subject to historical constraints quite different from those in Spain and other Western European democracies. Marchi describes the groups on the Portuguese radical right, and certain figures who were inspired by the ND and disseminated its ideas in Portugal. His analysis of their main publications, their statements and the media campaign to promote the ND from the end of the 1960s to the beginning of the 1980s highlights the different reasons for and ways in which Portuguese radicals engaged and dealt with the ND. Marchi also looks at the reactions of the national right-wing milieu to the spread of ND ideas. As part of his paper’s contribution to comparative studies on the transnational radical right, it also provides new evidence, derived from the Portuguese case, of the way in which one of the most important schools of right-wing thought at the end of the twentieth century has influenced extreme-right milieux all over Europe. In light of Tamir Bar-On's analysis of the ND's cultural and pan-European impact, the findings presented here confirm its transnational character while drawing on this and other cases from southern Europe to question the French movement's long-term effectiveness in reorienting the culture of the right-wing milieu.     

The nation under threat: secularist,racial and populist nativism in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

Right-wing discourses and issues of belonging and collective identity in Europe’s political and public spheres are often analysed in terms of Islamophobia, racism and populism. While acknowledging the value of these concepts, Ke?i? and Duyvendak argue that these discourses can be better understood through the logic of nativism. Their article opens with a conceptual clarification of nativism, which they define as an intense opposition to an internal minority that is seen as a threat to the nation due to its ‘foreignness’. This is followed by the analysis of nativism’s three subtypes: secularist nativism, problematizing particularly Islam and Muslims; racial nativism, problematizing black minorities; and populist nativism, problematizing ‘native’ elites. The authors show that the logic of nativism offers the advantages of both analytical precision and scope. The article focuses on the Dutch case as a specific illustration of a broader European trend.     

From Imperium to Internet: the National Alliance and the American extreme right

Led by William Pierce, a former officer in the National Socialist White People's Party, America's National Alliance has achieved particular notoriety as a result of Pierce's authoring of a genocidal political thriller called The Turner Diaries. Pierce argues, both in his fiction and elsewhere, for the recruitment of an elite that will one day lead to an armed struggle against The System. The argument of others on the extreme right in the United States, however, that only individuals or at most small cells can successfully overthrow the state represents a grave challenge to the Alliance's groupuscular logic.     

Riots,disasters and racism: impending racial cataclysm and the extreme right in the United States

ABSTRACT

Three events in late 2005—Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in New Orleans, the Muslim riots in the suburbs of Paris, and the Cronulla ‘uprising’ in Australia—were interpreted by the American extreme right as confirmation of a long-feared impending racial cataclysm. Michael and Mulloy examine analyses of these events from various representatives of the American extreme right. While the mainstream media were often diffident about reporting frankly on the more sensitive implications of these events, this phenomenological approach may provide insight on how various controversial issues—such as immigration, race and multiculturalism—impinge on contemporary American society, culture and politics.     

Gender,populist attitudes,and voting: explaining the gender gap in voting for populist radical right and populist radical left parties

Empirical studies have demonstrated that compared to almost all other parties, populist radical right (PRR) parties draw more votes from men than from women. However, the two dominant explanations that are generally advanced to explain this disparity – gender differences regarding socio-economic position and lower perceptions regarding the threat of immigrants – cannot fully explain the difference. The article contends that it might actually be gender differences regarding the conceptualisation of society and politics – populist attitudes – that explain the gender gap. Thus, the gap may be due, in part, to differences in socialisation. The article analyses EES 2014 data on voting for the populist radical right and the populist radical left in nine European countries. Across countries, the gender gap in voting for the PRR is indeed partly explained by populist attitudes. For populist radical left parties, the results are less clear, suggesting that populism has different meanings to voters on the left and on the right.