9 Ties to radical right populist parties
In this chapter, I trace the complex relationship between the ND and contemporary radical right-wing populist parties. I begin by identifying the core characteristics of radical right-wing populism. I then demonstrate how the ND provided the ideological ammunition, discourse changes, key themes, and some important personnel for radical right-wing populist parties. It is important to note that the foundation of the ND preceded the creation of the extreme right-wing FN. As posited in Chapter 1, in the France of the 1970s the ND was an intellectual force to be reckoned with, while at the time the FN languished in political and electoral irrelevance. Yet, as the FN grew in importance and scored important electoral victories in the mid-1980s and 1990s, the ND’s intellectual and political pedigree dwindled dramatically. This led de Benoist, Champetier, and other ND figures to claim that they were the victims of political correctness at the hands of the mass media and established elites.
As mentioned in the Introduction, it is important to remember that the post-Second World War revolutionary right-wing milieux (including fascism) took three different paths: (1) parliamentary contestation; (2) extra-parliamentary terrorist violence; and (3) a metapolitical path focused on changing hearts and minds as a precondition for defeating liberalism. The ND chose the third path, but this did not mean that it had no links with the movements, parties, and personalities associated with paths one and two. In Where Have All the Fascists Gone? (Bar-On 2007: 165–76) I traced the ND’s controversial linkages to the violent wings of the revolutionary right, as well as anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. Some on the left insisted that even the non-violent paths (that is, parliamentary contestation and metapolitics) desired what one French neo-fascist author called the revival of fascism with ‘another name, another face’. Despite the differences between the three paths, they all undoubtedly shared a deep disdain for liberal democracy, even if the political parties and the metapolitical path charted by the ND gave their tactical support to liberal democracy.
In addition, it is important to recall that following the Second World War the revolutionary right-wing milieux needed to adapt to the changed political circumstances in which Fascists and Nazis were defeated and liberal democracy was seen as the hegemonic ideology. As multicultural societies increasingly became a European reality in the 1970s and 1980s, the revolutionary right needed to respond to this challenge since they were once proponents of open racism and certainly no fans of racial mixing. Given these changing realities, the revolutionary right increasingly turned more metapolitical as a counterweight to the violence of the fascists in the interwar years, European (rather than merely nationalist), and internationalist as a way to defend the ‘white man’ against the demographically and politically assertive rise of non-European societies. The ND’s intellectual makeover was integral to the metapolitical and European turn of the revolutionary right. Recall that in Chapter 1 I pointed out that de Benoist and other ND thinkers increasingly saw Europe as the ‘new home’ and believed that liberal democracy needed to be defeated throughout the continent. In a piece he wrote for Figaro-Magazine in 1980, de Benoist (2012: 155) explained why he had abandoned the anti-Gaullism of his youth: de Gaulle was a defender of a geopolitically sovereign Europe and French political independence, a champion of the ‘cause of peoples’ (for example, his infamous Vive le Québec libre! cry in 1967), and an opponent of US hegemony through his independent NATO policy. In short, for the ND, Europe rather than France would be the animating principle in an age where large civilizational blocs determined political choices.
As we saw in the previous chapter, as a loose cultural ‘school of thought’ ND thinkers certainly differ in terms of substantive policy positions and strategies in their assault on liberal democracy. So, for example, Guillaume Faye and Robert Steuckers criticized de Benoist’s metapolitical path as too divorced from concrete political realities, political parties, and movements. Faye also chided the ND leader for taking anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-Israel, and pro-immigrant and pro-Third World positions at a time when radical Islam was allegedly Europe’s ‘number one enemy’. If ND thinkers as diverse as de Benoist, Faye, Dugin, Tarchi, Southgate, and Steuckers could not agree on common positions and strategies, how could there be unity within the radical right-wing political parties or among the three tendencies pointed out at the outset?
In a Telos interview published in the 1990s, de Benoist insisted that the ND’s ‘great impact’ on extreme right-wing political parties ‘exists only in the minds of those who inscribe it to us’ (de Benoist in Bar-On 2007: 168). Yet, in 2012 he could also say that the ‘seeds’ of ND ideas had been ‘planted’ and now we wait to see what ‘germinates’ (de Benoist 2012: 257). He then suggested that ND themes have ‘flowered’ on the political landscape today, even in a ‘subterranean’ manner. The ND leader was also ‘certain’ that the ND ‘has its place in the history of ideas’ (de Benoist 2012: 257). One terrain where ND ideas had ‘germinated’, even if not always to the liking of the ND leader, was with the radical right-wing populist parties. While not always a fan of the open xenophobia of the radical right-wing populist parties, de Benoist (2012: 310–11) saw their rise as a ‘consequence’ of the corruption and ideological proximity of the established parties; the transformation of liberal democracy into a ‘financial oligarchy’; the product of an ‘incestuous’ New Class in the political and media domains; the crisis of representation; the world domination of financial markets; mass immigration with little concern for the protection of cultures or peoples; a ‘class-based hatred’ of the people; and the discrediting of political institutions. He nonetheless criticized the ‘new populism’ as a ‘disgusting mixture of economic ultra-liberalism and xenophobia’ (de Benoist 2012: 311). Yet, rejecting the ‘moralism’ of the liberal-left in respect of the rise of radical right-wing populism, de Benoist insisted that there was no such thing as ‘absolute evil’ or ‘absolute good’ in politics. Rather, even totalitarian regimes had their kernel of ‘good’, or what else could explain why so many people were ‘converts’ to fascism, Nazism, Stalinism, or Maoism?
This chapter explores the ND’s ties and impact on radical right-wing political parties and movements. I argue that the emergence of the ND in the 1970s was part of a shifting cultural and political climate in the late 1970s and 1980s (recall the 13 trends discussed in Chapter 2) that paved the way for the rise of the FN and other anti-immigrant political parties. In addition, it is undeniable that ND thinkers provided radical right-wing political parties with key discourse changes such as ‘the right to difference’, ‘anti-French racism’, and the ‘victimization’ of ‘indigenous’ European ethnic groups due to immigration and multiculturalism. It is the claim of this chapter that despite the differences between the ND and political outfits such as the FN (for example, metapolitics versus parliamentary politics, intellectual elitism versus populism, or a more nuanced position on immigration that blames capitalism rather than immigrants for France or Europe’s ‘ills’), the two outfits share the following characteristics:
In reviewing these eight positions, it is also clear that both the ND and numerous radical right-wing populist parties from the FN to the LN fit within the ambit of the three conceptual tools discussed in the book. Both ND and the radical right parties reject the existing right–left political dimension because we should all be united by our duties to our ethnic groups and Europe rather than be divided by our socio-economic circumstances (conceptual tool one). This ethnic unity will lead to the rebirth of the region or nation and Europe, as well as the defeat of liberal multiculturalism. Second, both political forces are not so excessively traditionalist (although the radical right-wing parties tend to be more traditionalist, pro-Christian, and pro-Western than the ND) that they seek to overturn the modernist order. They all long for alternative variants of modernity in order to express deep disdain with liberal and socialist versions of modernity (conceptual tool two). Finally, in a more de-spiritualized age both political forces stress the return to a world of myth and rituals connected to the ethnic group as an antidote to the excessive materialism of our times. A world grounded in the rituals of European ancestors will banish anomie and decadence through a secular ‘religion of politics’ that has its roots in modernity (conceptual tool three).
Identifying the radical right populist family
As pointed out in Chapter 1, the ND leader Alain de Benoist and the FN began a period of open warfare in 1990. De Benoist criticized the FN for its excessive moralism, liberalism, ultra-nationalism, and anti-immigrant scapegoat logic. The differences between the ND and FN were summarized by former GRECE president Jacques Marlaud (1990) as follows: (1) the FN’s pro-Christian stance in contrast to the ND’s paganism; (2) the ND’s pan-Europeanism versus the FN’s narrow French nationalism; (3) the ND’s right of peoples to remain as they are on French soil (including the right of Muslims to use their mosques and hijabs) versus the FN’s anti-Muslim polemics; (4) the FN’s focus on a superficial security-conscious and identity-obsessed discourse, which failed to break with a capitalist, consumer society that the ND insisted is a ‘system for killing peoples’; and (5) the ‘military atmosphere’ in the FN in contrast to the ND’s ‘libertarian and aristocratic conception of excellence’. In 2012, de Benoist could declare that he never voted for the FN and that he ‘does not feel anything in common’ with the party (2012: 87, 140). He also criticized the FN because the immigration issue became central to its campaign as if it were the only issue France has to deal with today (2012: 140–1). Moreover, de Benoist argued that the FN’s anti-immigrant rhetoric showed little concern for the ‘victims’ of immigration (that is, the immigrants trapped in a ‘heartless’ capitalist system) and confused immigration with Islamicization.
Despite the open warfare between the ND and FN, the political outfits shared an ‘anti-egalitarian ethos’ and an ‘obsessive quest for identity’ in which the goal is to create ethnically homogeneous communities cleansed of foreigners or immigrants (Bar-On 2007: 169–71). Moreover, the pro-Third World, anti-American, and anti-humanitarian intervention positions of the FN (for example, against French participation in the Libyan intervention in 2011) all mirrored those of the ND. All of this begs the question: Who are the radical right-wing populist parties and what are the core characteristics of this political family?
Gilles Ivaldi (2012: 24–5) points out that there were 25 radical right-wing populist parties contesting the 2009 European elections. Only Ireland and Spain are not represented in the list, thus showing the pan-European pull of the populist radical right. These parties include the following: the Freedom Party and Alliance for the Future of Austria (Austria); Flemish Interest and the National Front (Belgium); National Union Attack (Bulgaria); National Party and Workers’ Party (Czech Republic); National Democratic Party, German People’s Union, and Republicans (Germany); Danish People’s Party (Denmark); True Finns and The Finnish People’s Blue-whites (Finland); National Front (France); Popular Orthodox Rally (Greece); Hungarian Justice and Life Party – Jobbik (Hungary); Northern League and The Right Tricolour Flame (Italy); All for Latvia! (Latvia); National Action (Malta); Party for Freedom (the Netherlands); League of Polish Families (Poland); National Renewal Party (Portugal); Greater Romania Party (Romania); Slovak National Party (Slovakia); Slovene National Party (Slovenia); Swedish Democrats (Sweden); and British National Party (United Kingdom). These parties scored anywhere from 0.40 per cent (National Renewal Party, Portugal) to a high of 16.97 per cent (Party for Freedom, the Netherlands) of the popular vote.
As discussed in Chapter 2, Sarah L. de Lange (2012) trenchantly points out that radical right-wing populist parties have participated in five different national governments in Western Europe in the new millennium (that is, Austria – 2000/2003, Denmark – 2001/2005/2007, Italy – 2001/2005/2008, the Netherlands – 2002, and Norway – 2001) and four different national governments in Eastern Europe in the 1990s and new millennium (Estonia – 1992/1994, Poland – 2006, Romania – 1993, and Slovakia – 1992/1994/2006). Andrej Zaslove (2008) highlights how the anti-immigrant Swiss People’s Party made the transformation from a radical right populist party while a member of the powerful Swiss Federal Council in the 1990s. The Swiss People’s Party became Switzerland’s largest party in 2007, although by then was no longer appointed to the Federal Council due to their constant blocking of government policies. The party proposed a number of referenda objecting to Swiss asylum and immigration laws, while opposing Swiss entry to the EU.
Radical right populist parties have thus held power in various European countries at the national, regional, and municipal levels. In addition, radical right populist parties are said to simultaneously play two roles: an ‘anti-system’ force and a ‘conventional political party’ (Zaslove 2008). Moreover, recall my notion of a ‘Europe for Europeans’ in Chapter 6, which translates into the support of both ND and radical right populist parties for national or European preference. Guillaume Roux (2012: 72) notes that national preference entails for the supporters of the radical right populist family a legal distinction between citizens and non-citizens of a country and unequal treatment based on racial or biological criteria ‘in the case of a perceived threat (high unemployment)’.
It is interesting to note that current FN leader Marine Le Pen rejected the ‘extremist’ or ‘radical’ label for the FN, insisting instead that it is a ‘mass’ or ‘popular’ party in a populist vein (Fourest and Venner 2011: 75). Hans Georg Betz (1994) argues that the terms far right or radical right were insufficient to explain the new political parties that emerged on the far right of the political spectrum in the 1980s and 1990s. Betz argues that the new political parties should be called radical right populist because they combine two main political traditions: the radical right and populism. These parties are populist, he suggests, because of their ‘appeal to the common man and his allegedly superior common sense’. Furthermore, these parties are radical because, according to Betz, they ‘reject’ the ‘established socio-cultural and social-political system’. Finally, these parties are right-wing, he adds, owing to their ‘rejection of individual and social equality and of political projects that seek to achieve it’ (1994: 4).
Using Betz’s definition, the ND is right-wing because of their rejection of liberalism and socialism; they are more than radical in that they not only reject the system but seek its revolutionary overthrow; and although they appeal to the people and popular traditions, they view mere populism as too plebeian.
Cass Mudde (2007) highlighted three key characteristics of the radical right populist family of political parties: (1) nativism (that is, defending the privileges of a homogeneous native population against immigrants); (2) authoritarianism (that is, belief in strong leadership and a strong state); and (3) a pronounced populism (that is, a strong anti-establishment stance and disdain for all established parties and a defence of the ‘little man on the street’ against the political, economic, and cultural elites). For Mudde (2007: 18–24), nativism, or the belief that states should be inhabited exclusively by members of the ‘native’ group, is the key ingredient linking all radical right populist parties in both Western and Eastern Europe. Note that ‘nativism’ is what I had in mind when I argued in Chapter 6 that the ND longs for a ‘Europe for Europeans’. In the case of the FN and other radical right populist parties, the notion of a ‘Europe for Europeans’ is supported, but there is greater emphasis on the nationalistic project of a ‘France for the French’, ‘England for the English’, or ‘Finland for the Finns’.
Michael Whine (2012) pointed to the definitional problems surrounding political parties and movements on the fringes of the ‘right’, whether the far right, radical right, and extreme right. He argues that terminology ‘may be somewhat static and limiting as they can fail to reflect process and complexity’. Like the ND, Whine argues that the contemporary far right in Europe ‘is rapidly moving away from the narrow ultranationalism that characterized it in the twentieth century toward a genuine and distinctive European agenda’. He points to these groups’ ‘similar demands, growing liaison and coordination between national groups, and attempts to build supranational caucuses like that of the now defunct Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty group in the European Parliament, and the more recent European Social Movement’. Yet, the lines between the extreme right and radical right are blurry, with Whine (2012) including ND leader Alain de Benoist under the ambit of the extreme right – slightly more radicalized than the radical right. Nonetheless, Whine (2012) acknowledges similarities between the extreme right and radical right:
But the major concern of the extreme right at present, like that of the radical right, is the growing presence in Europe of new migrants whose cultures and religions are seen as alien. The new right, too, exploits anxieties about migration, globalization, and perceived cultural threats rather than traditional neo-Nazi tropes.
Godin et al. (2012) insist that the far right comprises all of the extra-parliamentary right. Within this category, the radical right includes the emerging anti-immigrant populist movements, which are racist, sometimes anti-Semitic, and may have neo-fascist or neo-Nazi origins (but which are rejected by these movements). The extreme right includes neo-Nazis, neo-Nazi skinheads, autonomous nationalists, and Third Positionists, all pursuing anti-democratic and sometimes violent means to promote their ideologies.
Michael Minkenberg (2012) focuses on the new right-wing radicals and how they promote the myth of a homogeneous nation, with radicalized criteria of exclusion. He argues that their populist ultra-nationalism is aimed at undermining the concept of a liberal and pluralistic democracy, as well as its fundamental principles of individualism and universalism. Minkenberg highlights four ideological variants within the radical right: the autocratic fascists, the racists and ethnocentrists who are not fascists, the populist authoritarians organized around a strong leader, and the religious and fundamentalists.
Most of the radical right-wing populist family has taken anti-immigrant and sometimes anti-Muslim positions, while their voters are wary of immigration, more xenophobic than average voters, and troubled by ethnic or religious pluralism (Ivaldi in Backes and Moreau 2012: 15–16). For Whine (2012), these parties and movements are ‘adept at using social media to amplify their message, recruit, and organize’. In a pan-European spirit, Whine (2012) adds that this radical right family tends to ‘embrace information and communication technologies and operate across national borders’ (for example, some groups have multilingual websites). In addition, the immigration card has been their key to electoral success, in conjunction with defence of identity and the welfare state (Backes and Moreau 2012: 422). These parties have generally argued that political elites in their respective states undertake policies such as official multiculturalism and generous welfare benefits for foreigners, which ultimately make ‘natives’ feel like foreigners in their own homes. Betz (1994) and Taggart (2000) have pointed out that the radical right populist parties have a great ability to mobilize public resentment towards the political elite. Like the ND, these political parties long for an ethnocracy, a system of political, legal, economic, social, and cultural dominance for ‘original’ European peoples. In the FN’s programme published in April 2011, the party calls for reforms to automatic acquisition of French nationality if your father or mother is French (Fourest and Venner 2011: 185). The FN also makes acquisition of French nationality contingent on good conduct (that is, no criminal record) and ability to integrate into French society. Many of these parties also seek to transcend the right–left political divide, as evidenced by the FN’s electoral campaign slogan in 1995: ‘Neither right, nor left, French’ (Fourest and Venner 2011: 146).
Yet, it is important to note that the radical right populist family is rather heterogeneous in its positions concerning the ‘ethos of equality’, rejection of the EU (that is, ‘softer’ and ‘harsher’ forms of Euroscepticism), and diametrically opposed positions on Christianity and nationalism (that is, Christian fundamentalism and pagan tendencies, as well as regionalist and ultra-nationalist convictions) (Backes and Moreau 2012: 420). Moreover, on foreign policy issues some radical right populist parties like the FN follow the anti-American, anti-Israel position in line with the ND leader’s anti-liberal and anti-Western turn in the 1980s, while others such as the Freedom Party of the Netherlands are solidly pro-American and pro-Israel (like ND thinker Guillaume Faye). Yet, despite the fact that the FN holds pro-Arab positions in the geopolitical realm, not unlike de Benoist, in the spirit of Guillaume Faye it declared ‘Islamicization’ as ‘the new peril’ while making no distinctions between Islamic, Islamism, or Islamicization (Fourest and Venner 2011: 249). For the FN, like Faye, the political formula was simple: Islam = immigration = the ‘Occupation of France’ (Fourest and Venner 2011: 260). In Eastern Europe, the radical right populist parties differ from their Western counterparts due to the economic, social, and psychological context of post-communism, the instability of the political systems, and the lack of party loyalty (Backes and Moreau 2012: 422).
Acknowledging the heterogeneity of the radical right populists, Patrick Moreau (2012) offers a typology of four types of parties: (1) ‘dinosaur parties’ such as the Austrian FPÖ and the French FN; (2) the Nordic model with parties such as the Danish People’s Party and the True Finns; (3) regional parties such as the Belgian Flemish Interest and the Italian LN; and (4) Eastern European parties such as Jobbik in Hungary, National Union Attack in Bulgaria, and the Greater Romania Party (united by their openly anti-Roma and anti-Semitic views, acceptance of violence, and disdain for democracy and the rule of law). Moreover, it is generally acknowledged that the rise of radical right populists is related to ‘structural socio-economic, political and / or cultural changes that have taken place in post-industrial societies’ (Ivaldi 2012: 15). This means that radical right populism cannot be traced merely to the ultra-nationalist politics of the interwar years and that these parties confront issues such as immigration, the EU, and the environment that were hitherto unknown to its ultra-nationalist predecessors.
Moreau (2012: 75–6) sought to identify why some radical right populist parties are more successful than others. He identified numerous themes used by these political parties and a preoccupation with many of the themes dear to ND thinkers: (1) nationalism; (2) use of the myth of the ‘golden age’; (3) rejection of existing parties and political elites; (4) support for ‘direct democracy’ (for example, referenda) and criticism of ‘representative democracy’; (5) appeal to the people (‘the humbly born’) against elites presented as a homogeneous and destructive group; (6) aggressive populism combined with a disdain for ‘political correctness’; (7) denunciation of genetic miscegenation and/or national, European, or ‘white’ demographic collapse; (8) xenophobic agitation and campaigns to stop immigration; (9) a rejection of multiculturalism and the integration of foreigners, as well as restrictions on awarding nationality to foreigners; (10) the expulsion or repatriation of immigrants, asylum seekers, or ‘economic refugees’; (11) the dangers of acculturation for the respective nations and foreigners (ethnopluralism); (12) national preference and restrictions on welfare benefits to foreigners; (13) an authoritarian programme that valorizes a strong state, rejects the ‘abstract’ ideology of human rights, and gives priority to duties above rights; (14) an ideology of security that sees foreigners as responsible for criminality and terrorism; (15) the introduction of tougher law and order measures such as the death penalty for terrorists, drug traffickers, and paedophiles; (16) an appeal to moral rehabilitation against the ‘decadence’ of the dissolution of morals (for example, homosexuality); (17) economic protectionism through social security and a rejection of privatization combined with anti-bureaucratic and anti-tax appeals; (18) a hostility towards European integration because the EU is designed to create ‘one centralized state’ in which nations, parliaments, and their cultures will lose their autonomy; (19) a charismatic leader; and (20) media attention.
Feeding the radical right populist parties?
Having established the general characteristics of the radical right populist parties, the question remains: Is the ND a feeder system for the radical right populist parties? In the Introduction, I explained how by the 1990s the ND had become one of a number of factions within the French FN. It is also true that numerous ND personalities jumped on the FN bandwagon in the 1980s at the moment that the ND was losing its relevance and the FN was gaining in political stature.
Pierre Vial, a former member of GRECE, introduced ND ideas to the FN through Terre et Peuple. Terre et Peuple defended the ‘cause of peoples’ and promoted a ‘Europeans first’ approach by seeking to end immigration and multiculturalism; it sought to create leaders for the coming ‘identitarian revolution’; stressed ‘total ethnic war’; and menacingly even saw the Jew as the enemy of all European peoples due to his alleged support for all modern, ‘cosmopolitan’ ideologies. Vial left GRECE for the FN around 1986. He would go on to support Bruno Megret, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s former number two, when he challenged Le Pen for the FN leadership at the end of the 1990s. Vial became an FN representative of the European Parliament in 1995. Yvan Blot, one of the original GRECE members and founders, became a parliamentary representative of the FN in the 1990s after a stint with the more conservative Gaullists. Jean-Claude Valla, a former GRECE secretary-general, was appointed editorial director of the FN publication Minute. Claude Bardet, another former GRECE member, became editor-inchief of the FN’s theoretical journal of ‘national studies’ Identité. The FN’s slogan ‘national preference’ was borrowed from a Jean-Yves Le Gallou (1985) book entitled La Préférence nationale: réponse à l’immigration. Le Gallou was sympathetic to the ND and was part of a think tank named Club de l’horloge (Clock Club), which, like GRECE, rejected egalitarianism and was a strong defender of collective identities.
Yet, while the French case is exceptional because the ND was created in France it is unclear whether the ND had the same impact on other radical right populist parties throughout Europe. In Italy, it is true that ND thinkers such as Marco Tarchi began their careers with the neo-fascist MSI. The MSI had a conspicuous neo-fascist orientation, which certainly differentiates it from the generally more politically correct radical right-wing populist parties. More research is needed on this front in the future, as well as on the financial patrons of the ND both in France and abroad.
Issues, discourse changes, and rhetorical strategies
The ND provided the right with an aura of respectability and legitimacy by crafting a coherent worldview. The ND’s metapolitical path led its intellectuals to focus on new issues (pan-European nationalism, immigration, the EU, the environment, wars of humanitarian intervention, etc.), novel discourse changes, and rhetorical strategies borrowed from its liberal-leftist competitors. Those issues, discourse changes, and rhetorical strategies were picked up by neo-fascist and radical right-wing populist parties such as the French FN and the Italian MSI and LN. Both the ND and the radical right populist parties were united by the notions that egalitarianism ‘kills’ regional and national cultures and that immigration and multiculturalism are ‘real problems’. Established political parties on the right and left, argued the ND and the radical right populist parties, were ‘traitors’ to the cause of their peoples and Europe by accepting immigration or remaining silent about the immigration ‘problem’.
As the ND was obsessed with preserving rooted, homogeneous ethnic identities in Europe, it was no accident that the key issues that were picked up by the radical right populist parties were related to national (or regional) identity. These issues included: (1) the failure of the immigration regime, its dangers for national identity, and its tacit support by established political parties on the right and left; (2) the way official multiculturalism leads to the levelling of cultures and the disappearance of ‘indigenous’ European cultures; (3) the need to halt immigration for the benefit of home and host cultures; (4) the need to implement a policy of national preference in welfare, jobs, and citizenship; and (5) the EU as it is currently constituted reduces national sovereignty and homogenizes all national and regional cultures.
In addition, the ND has probably influenced some specific campaign themes in different countries. The FN began with a more liberal or neo-liberal view of the state in respect of the economy, but in periods of ‘economic crisis’ it began to heavily criticize capitalism and defend the welfare state on behalf of the ‘little guys’. Also, in 2005 when the MSI decided to support the right of immigrants to vote in local elections, were they not following the lead of de Benoist who in the new millennium defended the ‘right to difference’ of immigrants on European soil? Finally, as the ND was a proponent of an imperial ‘Europe of a hundred flags’, it certainly influenced the pro-regionalist turn of parties such as the Italian LN and Belgian Vlaams Belang. Like the ND, both parties argued that Northern Italy and Flanders respectively required autonomy or sometimes outright independence in order to protect their peoples from the homogenization schemes of the assimilationist liberal state, EU, and global capitalism.
Some of the most clever rhetorical strategies used by the radical right populist parties were borrowed from the ND: (1) ‘the right to difference’ of all cultures (including the right of the ‘French French’ to determine their own immigration regime and abolish multiculturalism in order to preserve their cultural distinctiveness); (2) the ‘real racists’ are the pro-globalization and pro-multicultural ‘one-worlders’ of a liberal-leftist stripe because they seek to homogenize all cultures through the market and state; (3) the belief that the right is a ‘victim’ of bias, thought control, and la pensée unique at the hands of the liberal-left cultural and political elites. The English translation of la pensée unique is ‘single thought’, implying the claimed supremacy of neo-liberalism as an ideology. The term la pensée unique was coined by Ignacio Ramonet in a January 1995 editorial piece in Le Monde diplomatique.
Examples of campaign discourses
At this point, I want to provide some examples of specific campaign discourses used by the radical right populists that mimic ND discourse changes. It is important to note that de Benoist did not approve of the crude anti-immigrant, scapegoat logic of FN electoral campaigns, but instead argued that those who remain ‘silent about capitalism’ should not speak out about immigration. His comments were directed at the FN leadership, which in the early 1990s had still not taken a more pronounced social agenda and was a fan of the market. Or, when the Austrian FPÖ in its 2008 election programme, ‘Our promise to Austria’, advocated ‘a humane and consequential return’ of foreigners to their homelands (especially criminals and ‘parasites of the social system’) (Moreau 2012: 84), such a radical position has not been officially favoured by de Benoist in recent years.
Yet, the fact that two Austrian radical right populist parties scored a combined 28 per cent of the vote in the 2008 general elections was in large part due to the salience of the immigration issue. The immigration issue was a concern for the ND long before the ascendancy of electorally successful radical right populist parties. Moreover, in the same 2008 election campaign the FPÖ called for ‘the protection of the labor market by a national preference system’ (Moreau 2012: 85), in reference to the ND’s penchant for national preference.
FN electoral campaign themes were also undoubtedly influenced by the ND. As one writer explains, ‘[i]mmigration remains a central mobilizing element of the FN’ (Moreau 2012: 89). The aim of ‘reversing migration’ is a high priority and finds an echo in the ND’s official manifesto, written in 1999, which called for the ‘end of immigration’. Like the Austrian FPÖ, the FN wants to restrict various social welfare and family benefits to ‘true Frenchmen’ and also enact a law of ‘national preference’ (Moreau 2012: 89). Moreover, in defending the Palestinians and the Serbs in the case of Kosovo from the ‘new world order’, the FN follows the ND logic of seeing the EU, various international organizations, and the ‘military imperialism’ and ‘cosmopolitan ideology’ promoted by the USA as the ‘deadly enemy’ of nations (Moreau 2012: 91). In the post-9/11 climate, like ND thinker Guillaume Faye, the FN insisted that aside from the USA, ‘Islam is a major enemy’ because Muslims have far more babies than Europeans and Islam is a ‘conquering religion’, it is radically ‘anti-European’, and consists of a ‘totalitarian core’ (Moreau 2012: 91).
The BNP also borrowed from the themes and rhetorical strategies of the ND under its current leader Nick Griffin. The BNP gained over one million votes, or 6.34 per cent of the popular vote, in the 2009 European elections. Griffin, like many figures in the ND, began his career as ‘a militant right-wing extremist resorting to violence, an anti-Semite, and a [Holocaust] negationist’ (Moreau 2012: 94). Griffin was uncertain about participating in elections, but was determined to replicate the electoral successes of the French FN and the Austrian FPÖ by making his party less extremist. In his desire to win the ‘cultural war’ against the liberal-left by creating summer schools, a student wing of the party, record labels, television and radio stations, and a trade union, the BNP mirrors the ND’s oblique metapolitical strategy designed to ‘conquer’ civil society. Moreover, in avoiding issues such as racial differences, genetics, Zionism, and Holocaust denial in its recent campaigns, the BNP followed the lead of the ND, which vowed back in the late 1960s to ‘avoid outdated vocabulary’. In line with other radical right populist parties, immigrants, minority groups, and asylum-seekers are presented as ‘threats’ to national identity, a major cause of crime and social unrest, and a burden on the welfare system (Moreau 2012: 95). Moreover, borrowing from Guillaume Faye’s demographic fears of a ‘Eurabia’ or an ‘Islamicized Europe’, in 2009 the BNP turned to a ‘Campaign against Islam’, a ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis, and a defence of Western civilization (Moreau 2012: 95).
The Freedom Party of the Netherlands (PVV) under Pim Fortuyn and later Geert Wilders also borrows from the ND catalogue. The PVV is currently the third most important political party in the Netherlands. The PVV is not a classic radical right-wing party. It insists on the protection of the freedom of the individual from the state and the freedom of the Netherlands (its political sovereignty) from EU control (Moreau 2012: 106). Like the ND, the PVV criticizes multiculturalism and the ‘Islamization of the West’. It has taken Faye’s pronouncement of a Reconquista to heart by calling for a moratorium on the building of mosques and Islamic schools; an end to foreign funding or influences on mosques; a five-year ban on non-European immigration to the Netherlands; the end of dual citizenship; revoking the right of non-Dutch inhabitants to vote in local elections; and a refusal to provide medical care for illegal immigrants save in emergency cases (Moreau 2012: 107). For the 2010 general elections, PVV positions on Islam reached dizzying heights of radicalism: ‘Eradicating Islam should be the primary target of Dutch foreign policy’; Islam is a ‘totalitarian doctrine’; and voting for Wilders is akin to fighting ‘against Islam and mass immigration’ (Moreau 2012: 108).
It should be noted that the demands of Wilders for more ‘direct democracy’ and mandatory referenda on Turkish EU membership also echoes the ND. Similarly, despite his anti-Muslim polemics, like the ND, Wilders refuses to support a hierarchy of races. Like the ND, Wilders has used immigration, multiculturalism, and integration issues as key issues of his political programme.
It is also interesting to note that like the PVV, the True Finns of Finland have combined a strong Islamophobia, anti-immigration positions, and a social agenda that seeks to defend ‘original Finns’ from globalization and capitalism (Moreau 2012: 109–10). An interesting question is whether this ‘welfare chauvinism’ is inspired by the national preference orientation of the ND?
The Italian LN followed the cultural strategy of the ND. It created a flag for the state of Padania (which does not exist), a parliament, television and radio stations, social and cultural organizations, and sports clubs (Moreau 2012: 113). The notion of a ‘Padanian people’ destroyed by the assimilationist engineering policies of the Italian state (pro-Southern immigration) echoes the ND’s pro-regionalist ‘Europe of a hundred flags’. Moreover, LN election posters often utilize the symbol of a Native North American Indian, victims of imperialism and genocide, in order to supposedly show how Northern Italians are ‘victims’ of ‘cultural genocide’ at the hands of the Italian state and its pro-immigration and pro-multiculturalism regime. Finally, the LN, which is clearly anti-Southern and anti-Muslim, simultaneously supports ethnopluralism and the need to ‘respect cultural diversity’ (Moreau 2012: 116). Like the ND, the LN argues that the ‘right of cultural defense’ against immigration is ‘normal’ and that the ‘true racism’ is to be found in a ‘global, Anglophone, and totalitarian village on the ruins of people’ (Moreau 2012: 116).
The Belgian Vlaams Belang also borrows from ND themes, although its pro-Israel positions are not shared by many within the ND save Faye. It views immigration, especially Muslim immigration, as a ‘machine to kill the peoples’ (Moreau 2012: 120). Remember that it was back in 1981 that ND thinker Guillaume Faye wrote a book Le système à tuer les peuples, which claimed that immigration is a system to ‘kill’ or ‘destroy’ rooted ethnic communities throughout Europe. The Vlaams Belang’s goal of an independent Flemish state with Brussels as its capital mimics the ND’s pro-regionalist orientation. Finally, the Islamophobic pronouncements of the party are echoes of Guillaume Faye’s apocalyptic warnings about an imminent ‘race war’ or ‘clash of civilizations’ between European and Muslim cultures.
While the ND has some cultural and political impact in Eastern Europe, especially in Russia through Aleksandr Dugin, could it be said that the radical right populists in Eastern Europe are more wedded to an ‘old right’: more openly ultra-nationalist, xenophobic, and anti-Semitic? Yet, even with the Eastern European political parties we can hear the discursive impact of the ND. So, for example, the election programme of the Slovak National Party (SNS) states that Slovaks should rediscover their roots and identity as a mechanism ‘to counterbalance the risks of globalization of the culture and the creation of global pseudo-values’ (Moreau 2012: 127). Recall that ND theorists were against liberalism and socialism because they were universal and ‘abstract’ ideologies, which assimilated and homogenized diverse peoples worldwide. Moreover, the human rights agenda of the West and the new wars of humanitarian intervention are presented as fake projects hiding a neo-imperialist ‘will to power’.
Jobbik is a Hungarian political party that was founded in 2003. It is today Hungary’s third most important political party. It is more of an ‘old right’ than a ‘new right’, owing to its profound anti-Semitism: the party claims that the banks, media, and corporations are in the hands of Jews (Moreau 2012: 130–1). Jobbik’s conspicuous anti-Semitism, as well as its ties to the Hungarian Guard (a non-armed paramilitary group that seeks to imitate the fascist Arrow Cross of the interwar years) and desire to revise the Treaty of Trianon in an ethnically revanchist spirit, links it to an older right-wing tradition of the past. Numerous radical right populist parties in Western Europe are philo-Semitic and pro-Zionist, in line with the ND’s desire to avoid ‘outdated’ anti-Semitic vocabulary. Yet, in declaring that media and cultural elites, as well as liberals and leftists, are ‘enemies of Hungary’ (Moreau 2012: 131), we hear a discourse formulation common to the ND. It is rather interesting that the anti-Muslim polemics common to most radical right populist parties is missing, substituted with anti-Romani and anti-Semitic worldviews. Turkey and the Muslim Central Asian countries are seen as ‘cousins’ originating from the same cultural tree, while there is a willingness to expand economic and cultural ties with Turkey and even accept Turkey into the EU (Moreau 2012: 132). In Jobbik’s pronouncements, the anti-immigrant theme so common to Western Europe is replaced by the ‘internal enemy’: the Romani and Jew.
In conclusion, this chapter has traced the ties and impact of the ND on the new themes, discourse changes, and rhetorical strategies of the radical right populist parties. While it is clear that the ND took a more long-term, metapolitical path rather than the more direct, parliamentary method of seizing power, some of its members did join the radical right populist parties in the 1980s and 1990s. In addition, while sectors of the ND rejected the anti-immigrant scapegoat logic of the new radical right populists (for example, Alain de Benoist), other sectors clearly relished it (for example, Guillaume Faye). Both the ND and the radical right populist parties agreed that immigration and multiculturalism needed to be halted for the benefit of ‘home’ and ‘host’ cultures; that the established political parties are often ‘traitorous’ to their own people; and that liberal egalitarianism is a levelling framework that undermines the diversity of the world’s nations, regions, and ethnic groups.
The economic crises beginning in 2008, doubts about the EU, globalization, and corporations, bailout funds for debt-ridden states, the attack on the welfare state, growing unemployment and social dislocation (crime, insecurity, physical assaults on immigrants, etc.), the continuing failure to integrate immigrants, new terrorist attacks, and fatigue with the traditional pro-liberal and multicultural positions of the mainstream political parties could further increase support for the radical right populists in Europe. The conditions and issues in Eastern Europe are different, owing to the communist and authoritarian past and a more aggressive and conspicuous xenophobic nationalism. In any case, the successful political entrepreneurs today are increasingly the radical right populist parties as they claim to be the voice of ‘original’ Europeans. They have even participated in numerous coalition governments throughout Europe. Yet, these radical right populist parties could draw on ready-made themes, discourse changes, and rhetorical strategies crafted by ND theoreticians.