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 French secular hypocrisy: the extreme right,the Republic and the battle for hegemony

ABSTRACT

The success of the extreme right in France in the past two decades has not been limited to its electoral rise. A more long-lasting victory has taken place in the ideological field, where the discourse of the extreme right now occupies a prominent place in the mainstream liberal democratic agenda. Increasingly, its ideas are seen in the media and in the platforms of mainstream parties as ‘common sense’ or at least acceptable. The growing acceptance of this ‘common sense’ is the result of very carefully crafted strategies put in place by extreme-right thinkers since the 1980s. For over three decades now, in order to change perceptions and renew extreme right-wing ideology, New Right think tanks such as the French GRECE believed it was necessary to borrow the tactics of the left and, more specifically, the Gramscian concept of hegemony: cultural power must precede political power. With the use of contemporary examples, Mondon's article demonstrates the continuing impact these ideas have had on the Front national and French politics and society, and how this change originated in the association of populist rhetoric with the neo-racist stigmatization of the Other.     

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.     

Net Gains and GUD Reactions: Patterns of Prejudice in a Neo-fascist Groupuscule

Using the student organization Groupe d'union et de défense (GUD) as a case-study, Griffin argues that the radical-right groupuscule should not be treated as an embryonic or stunted form of the inter-war 'armed party' epitomized by the Italian Fascist and German Nazi parties. Rather it is to be seen as a genus of extra-parlia-mentary political formation in its own right, perfectly adapted to the inhospitable climate of relatively stable liberal democracy and capitalism in which revolutionary nationalism has had to survive since 1945. As such the groupuscule's true significance lies in its existence as one minute entity in a swarm of similar organisms which can be termed the 'groupuscular right'. This takes on a collective force greater than the sum of its parts by conserving and transmitting fascism's diagnosis of the status quo and its vision of a new order despite its acute marginalization from mainstream politics. Having surveyed GUD's history and activities over the years, Griffin focuses on its ideology, which he identifies as a form of Third Positionism theoretically allied to anti-western Arab nations and heavily influenced by the Nouvelle Droite notion of 'cultural war' against the homogenizing effects of globalization and on behalf of a reborn Europe. He then considers the extraordinary network of historical and contemporary radical-right associations emanating to and from this one formation, a process considerably facilitated by the Internet. He concludes by suggesting that the importance of the groupuscular right, apart from its formation of cadres who may be recruited by mainstream parties such as the Front national, lies in its function as a self-perpetuating, leaderless, centreless and supra-national 'energy field' of neo-fascist beliefs, which, like the Web, is unaffected by the weakness or loss of individual nodal points (organizations).     

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.     

Between two rights: Julien Freund and the origins of political realism in France

Julien Freund (1921–93) was a French sociologist and political theorist who taught at the University of Strasbourg in the 1960s and 1970s. Although he is the author of over two dozen books, Freund remained throughout his lifetime something of a marginal figure in his own country. Yet, strangely, Freund is now receiving more scholarly attention in France than ever before. The question is why? This paper attempts to provide an answer by looking at Freund's attempt to establish an alternative intellectual canon in France that was heavily indebted to the German tradition of political realism. The story begins with Freund's early relationship with Raymond Aron, and suggests, perhaps provocatively, that Freund is responsible for luring Aron back into his studies on Max Weber dating from the 1930s. It then moves on to explore Freund's relationship with Carl Schmitt. Freund became Schmitt's closest French friend and, for forty years, exhibited a veritable obsession with disseminating Schmitt's work in France. Finally, it suggests that recent attempts by those who wish to place Freund within a current tradition of French liberalism are mistaken. Instead Freund must be placed within a German Neue Rechte context, and specifically his desire to introduce the German tradition of political realism into France. In the end the article argues that the French Nouvelle Droite—with its stress on the cultural and ethnic foundations of the nation-state—pushed Freund's political thought in a decidedly anti-liberal and seemingly pseudo-fascist direction.