Spotlight on the French New Right

by Michael Walker

Michael Walker examines the French New Right (Nouvelle Droite) movement, particularly focusing on G.R.E.C.E. (Research and Study Group for European Civilization), founded in May 1968. The piece explores how this intellectual movement positioned itself as distinct from both traditional right-wing politics and the American/British ‘New Right’, instead sharing some philosophical similarities with the New Left while rejecting its conclusions.

The article details how G.R.E.C.E. and its key figures — including Alain de Benoist and Guillaume Faye — developed a ‘metapolitical’ approach focused on cultural influence rather than direct political engagement. Their philosophy rejects ‘reductionist’ ideologies (including Marxism, monotheistic religions, and biological racism), champions cultural diversity and European identity, and strongly criticizes Western consumer society and American cultural influence. Walker also examines the movement’s growth, its media controversies, its influence across Europe, and offers critical observations about its limitations and contradictions.

Unless denoted EN (editor’s note), all translations/notes have been provided by Michael Walker

This article was originally published in Scorpion magazine, autumn 1986.

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A problem of terminology firstly. ‘New Right’ is a label of convenience which arose in the course of an intense media campaign in 1979 launched with the apparent purpose of discrediting the spokesmen of the New Right and their ideas. The designation ‘right’ has been criticized by many supporters who felt it too political or too conservative. The epithet ‘new’ also displeased friend and foe, the latter objecting to what to them was an untruth, since they argued there was nothing ‘new’ in the phenomenon at all: only a very old right in new clothing. The media label has stuck, however, partly because there is no better appellation which has come to hand and partly because there is at least some sense in the name. The movement has been innovatory (to say the least) in respect of many established opinions and dogmas of the conservative right and the far right. At the same time there is indisputably a closer association with the right than with the left, both in respect of the political background of most of the supporters of the New Right and in terms of their values. The term is nevertheless fraught with ambiguity and should be used with caution. Perhaps the issue was best dealt with by Alain de Benoist, one of the best known figures of the French New Right, who characterized himself in his book Vu de Droite (View from the Right: Volume I, Volume II, Volume III) as being a thinker who finds himself on the right but who would not wish to be characterized as of the right.

The French New Right, and the European New Right which is now growing out of it, should not be confused with the ‘New Right’ of America and Britain. The New Right in the United States is a collective term for the forces opposed to the liberal consensus established in the nineteen-sixties and is chiefly associated with the Moral Majority. This ‘right’ is determined to restore ‘traditional values’ of God and country and ultimately ‘save the West’. As we shall see, this is very far from being the aim, ultimate or otherwise, of the European New Right. In Britain ‘New Right’ is a term sometimes describing this trend and sometimes that of economic liberalism, which has been undergoing a revival in recent years. The European New Right is similar to neither of these ‘New Rights’. In some important respects it is radically opposed to them. Paradoxically the European New Right probably bears more similarity to the New Left. Both grew out of the tumultuous events of 1968 and both were created out of a rejection of some of the principal dogmas of the established political orthodoxy. Orthodox Marxism had proved inadequate as a vehicle for interpreting and acting in the modern world. Far from being radicalized, the industrial proletariat was being dragged deeper into ‘false consciousness’ and bourgeois complacency. The Soviet Union was no longer the ‘first homeland of the workers’ but a traitor government, a state-capitalist empire. The new idols were Mao and Guevara. The new apostles were Marcuse and Reich, who emphasized the importance of culture in the formation of the social superstructure. Instinctively, where not consciously, these and other writers of the left were aware of the need to change cultural norms as a prerequisite of political change. They condemned the consumer society for reducing mankind to a kind of gentle slavery — Marcuse called it ‘consumer terrorism’. Dialectical materialism was no longer material.