Nouvelle Droite

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Nouvelle Droite (English: New Right) is a school of political thought founded largely on the works of Alain de Benoist and GRECE (Research and Study Group on European Culture).

Etymology

The term Nouvelle Droite was first mentioned in the French media in 1979, in a media campaign against GRECE and the Club de l'Horloge. Some authors have shown it to lead to Le Figaro editor Louis Pauwels and member of GRECE, who wrote in the France Soir of 29 March 1979:

"My positions are those of what we can call the 'new right', and have nothing to do with the bourgeois, conservative, and reactionary right."

History

According to Alain de Benoist:

"We are a theoretical and cultural movement...it is accepted in France as a part of the cultural-political landscape. Debate and discussion here during the last two decades could not be thought of without the contribution of the New Right. Moreover, it is because the New Right has taken up particular themes that particular debates have taken place at all. I refer, for example, to discussions about the Indo-European legacy in Europe, the Conservative Revolution in Germany, about polytheism and monotheism, or about I.Q. -- heredity or environment (which is partly a rather false dichotomy), participatory democracy, federalism and communitarian ideas, criticism of the market ideology, and so forth. Well, we were involved in all these issues."

According to Jewish antifa Tamir Bar-On, the arguments and the positions of the Nouvelle Droite can not be easily positioned in the traditional Left-Right dichotomy, noting that it is an ideological synthesis of ideas of the Weimar Revolutionary Right (Conservative Revolution) (such as Carl Schmitt, Oswald Spengler and Ernst Jünger) and the New Left.

Paul Piccone, editor and founder of the New Left journal Telos writes in 1993: "What makes the French New Right particularly interesting is that is does not propose a bizarre reversal of positions, but the end of the traditional contraposition of Left and Right in favour of a new political paradigm."

The Broader European New Right

Nouvelle Droite arguments can be found in the discourses of patriotic parties in Europe such as the National Front in France, the Freedom Party of Austria and Vlaams Belang in Flanders (Belgium). This, despite the fact that Alain de Benoist and certain other ideologues of the Nouvelle Droite, since the late 80s, had issued statements against some populist national conservative movements.

Although mostly known in France, according to antifa Michael Minkenberg, the Nouvelle Droite borders to other European "New Right" movements, such as Neue Rechte in Germany, New Right in the United Kingdom, Nieuw Rechts in the Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium), Nuova Destra in Italy, Imperium Europa in Malta, and the New Right of Paul Weyrich and the Free Congress Foundation in the United States.

Relationship to Christianity

The New Right is sometimes considered to be essentially anti-Christian, but this is a misconception. Firstly, it should be noted that many New Right thinkers are in fact Christian, especially in the German Neue Rechte, although there are a few in the Nouvelle Droite as well (each group has both some Christians and non-Christians). It is also important to keep in mind that the major Nouvelle Droite thinkers offer valuable identitarian philosophical ideas that can be appreciated by both Christians and non-Christians. In fact, only a small portion of the works of key New Right thinkers such as Tomislav Sunic and Alain de Benoist actually focus on critiquing Christianity, and what they offer as a whole is acceptable to most Christians. One prominent Nouvelle Droite thinker, Guillaume Faye, even goes so far as to advocate an alliance between identitarian Christians and Pagans (in Why We Fight and Acheofuturism). Michael O'Meara, a North American New Right thinker inspired by the French New Right, is a Christian himself and objects to Benoist's criticisms of Christianity in his magnum opus New Culture, New Right, although he still believes Benoist's work is extremely valuable. Thus, it can be seen that Christianity and the New Right are not mutually exclusive, and in fact are already conjoined.

Further reading

  • De Benoist, Alain. Beyond Human Rights: Defending Freedoms. London: Arktos, 2011.
  • De Benoist, Alain. Carl Schmitt Today. London: Arktos, 2013.
  • De Benoist, Alain. “What is Racism?” Telos, Vol. 1999, No. 114 (Winter 1999), pp. 11-48. <http://www.alaindebenoist.com/pdf/what_is_racism.pdf>.
  • De Benoist, Alain. The Problem of Democracy. London: Arktos, 2011.
  • De Benoist, Alain. On Being a Pagan. Atlanta: Ultra, 2004.
  • De Benoist, Alain. On the Brink of the Abyss: The Imminent Bankruptcy of the Financial System. London: Arktos, 2015.
  • De Benoist, Alain. Vu de droite: Anthologie critique des idées contemporaines. Paris: Copernic, 1977.
  • De Benoist, Alain. Les Idées à l’endroit. Paris: Libres-Hallier, 1979.
  • De Benoist, Alain & Champetier, Charles. Manifesto for a European Renaissance. Austin, TX, USA: Runa-Raven Press, 2010.
  • Faye, Guillaume. Archeofuturism: European Visions of the Post-Catastrophic Age. London: Arktos Media, 2010.
  • Faye, Guillaume. Convergence of Catastrophes. London: Arktos, 2012.
  • Faye, Guillaume. Why We Fight: Manifesto for the European Resistance. London: Arktos Media, 2011.
  • Freund, Julien. L'essence du politique. Paris: Sirey, 1965.
  • Béjin, Andre & Freund, Julien (eds.). Racismes, Antiracismes. Paris: Librairie des Méridiens, 1986.
  • Krebs, Pierre. Fighting for the Essence. London: Arktos Media, 2012.
  • O’Meara, Michael. New Culture, New Right: Anti-Liberalism in Postmodern Europe. Bloomington, IN, USA: 1stBooks, 2004.
  • Sunic, Tomislav. Against Democracy and Equality: The European New Right. Third Edition. London: Arktos, 2011.
  • Sunic, Tomislav. Chroniques des Temps Postmodernes. Étampes, France: Avatar Éditions, 2014.
  • Sunic, Tomislav. Homo Americanus: Child of the Postmodern Age. USA: Book Surge Publishing, 2007.
  • Sunic, Tomislav. Postmortem Report: Cultural Examinations from Postmodernity (Collected Essays). Shamley Green, UK: The Paligenesis Project, 2010.
  • Tudor, Lucian. “The Philosophy of Identity: Ethnicity, Culture, and Race in Identitarian Thought.” The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Fall 2014), pp. 83-112.
  • Venner, Dominique. Histoire et tradition des Européens: 30 000 ans d'identité. Monaco et Paris: Éd. du Rocher, 2002.
  • Venner, Dominique. Le Choc de l'Histoire. Versailles: Via Romana, 2011.
  • Venner, Dominique. Un samouraï d'Occident: le bréviaire des insoumis. Paris: Pierre-Guillaume de Roux, 2013.
  • Vial, Pierre. Pour une Renaissance Culturelle : le G.R.E.C.E. prend la parole. Paris: Copernic, 1979.
  • Vial, Pierre. Une Terre, Un Peuple. Villeurbanne: Terre et Peuple, 2000.
  • We Are Generation Identity. London: Arktos, 2013.
  • Willinger, Markus. Generation Identity. London: Arktos, 2013.

Key People of the Nouvelle Droite

See also

External links