| Type | Monthly magazine |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Société de Presse et d'Édition Saint-Just |
| Founded | January 1963 |
| Political alignment | Pan-European nationalism |
| Language | French |
| Ceased publication | November 1966 |
| Country | France |
| Circulation | 7,500–10,000 |
Europe-Action was afar-right andeuro-nationalist magazine and movement, founded byDominique Venner in 1963 and active until 1966. Distancing itself from pre-WWII fascist ideas such as anti-intellectualism, anti-parliamentarianism and traditionalFrench nationalism,Europe-Action promoted a pan-European nationalism based on the "Occident"—or the "white peoples"— and asocial Darwinism escorted byracialism, labeled "biological realism". These theories, along with themeta-political strategy of Venner, influenced youngEurope-Action journalistAlain de Benoist and are deemed conducive to the creation ofGRECE and theNouvelle Droite in 1968.[1]
In his 1962 manifestoPour une critique positive ("For a Positive Critique"), written while he was in prison, formerJeune Nation memberDominique Venner rejected the myth of acoup de force, convinced that political revolution was impossible before a cultural revolution occurred. He believed that this cultural transformation could be achieved by publicly promoting nationalist ideas until they gained widespread support.[2] Venner held that both intellectual persuasion and violence had their roles, but his movement needed to prioritize ideas over action.[3] He also sought to remove the "old ideas" associated with pre‑World War II nationalism and fascism—such asanti-parliamentarianism,anti-intellectualism, and a form of patriotism limited solely to the nation-state.[4]
The text became influential in nationalist circles, withFrançois Duprat comparingFor a Positive Critique toLenin'sWhat is to be Done?, a political pamphlet written 16 years before theBolshevik Revolution.[5] These nationalists maintained an ambiguous view of Nazism;Europe-Action, for example, quotedMaurice Bardèche as saying that "next to genial intuitions, Hitler made mistakes," attributing these errors to a "lack of established doctrinal foundations."[4][6]
The group was further influenced by theManifesto of the Class of '60, published three years before Europe-Action was founded. In that manifesto, the pro-colonial founders of theFederation of Nationalist Students (FEN) committed themselves to "action of profound consequence", as opposed to the "sterile activism" of mere street violence that Jeune Nation had promoted in the 1950s.[7] Although Europe-Action members remained deeply committed to the cause ofFrench Algeria, they also recognised the emerging world shaped by decolonisation and the consolidation of theFrench Fifth Republic. As a result, they sought to develop a radical right ideology based on elements beyondVichy nostalgia andCatholic traditionalism.[3]
Europe-Action was launched in January 1963 byDominique Venner as a nationalist movement, accompanied by a magazine of the same name. Soon after its launch,Alain de Benoist andFrançois d'Orcival joined the publication as journalists.[8][9] Initially,Jacques Ploncard d'Assac contributed to the magazine, but he soon repudiated its anti-Christian stance and left in August 1963.[10] The magazine was published by Société de Presse et d'Édition Saint-Just, a company founded in November 1962 by Venner, Suzanne Gingembre (the wife of formerOAS treasurer Maurice Gingembre), and Jacques de Larocque-Latour, a racist caricaturist.Pierre Bousquet, a former member of theWaffen-SS, later became part of the company.[11]
In 1964, Alain de Benoist took over as editor-in-chief of the weeklyEurope-Action hebdomadaire.[12] Along with theFederation of Nationalist Students, Europe-Action supported the far-right presidential candidacy ofJean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour in1965 through theTixier-Vignancour Committees.[8] Following a dispute betweenOccident leaderPierre Sidos and campaign directorJean-Marie Le Pen, Europe-Action volunteers stepped in to support Tixier-Vignancour by joining hisComité Jeunes ("Youth Committee").[13] Venner's movement also mobilised its militant base to organise demonstrations against Algerian immigration.[14]
From June 1965 to 1966,Jean Mabire served as redactor-in-chief ofEurope-Action.[15][16] After Tixier-Vignancour’s electoral defeat, key members of Europe-Action founded theEuropean Rally for Liberty (REL) in 1966, in collaboration with young nationalists from the Federation of Nationalist Students.[2] During the campaign,Europe-Action hebdomadaire became the organ of the REL before being replaced by a short-lived magazine titledL'Observateur Européen.[8][17] The REL managed to field only 27 candidates during the1967 legislative election, garnering just 2.58% of the vote,[2][18] a failure often seen as paving the way for the creation of theethno-nationalist think tankGRECE and the evolution ofNouvelle Droitemeta-politics.[2]
The magazine released its final issue in November 1966 following the bankruptcy of its publishing house,[14][19] andEurope-Action ceased to exist in the summer of 1967 after an unsuccessful attempt to revive the publication.[14] At its peak, the magazine had an estimated circulation of between 7,500 and 10,000 copies.[20] Its symbol was ahoplite helmet.[21]
The movement developed two main thesis: a "biological realism" composed ofracialism andsocial Darwinism; and apan-European nationalism built on a common Western civilization seen as the link between the peoples of the "white race".[19] These ideas were to be promoted through ameta-political strategy of ideological influence until the eventual achievement of cultural dominance in wider society.[22]
"Biological realism", a concept coined by French neo-fascist activistRené Binet in 1950, promoted the establishment of individual and racial inequalities upon pseudo-scientific observations.[19] Binet argued that "interbreeding capitalism" ("capitalisme métisseur") aimed at creating a "uniform inhumanity" ("barbarie uniforme"); and that only "a true socialism" could "achieve race liberation" through the "absolute segregation at both global and national level."[23]Europe-Action also drew influence from the so-called "message of Uppsala",[19] a text likely wrote in 1958 by French neo-fascists related to theNew European Order, and deemed influential on European far-right movements that followed as it carried out subtle semantic shifts between "differentialism" and "inequality".[24] The ideas of Binet and "Uppsala", characterized by a worldwide "biological-cultural deal" where each group would remain sovereign in its own region, foreshadowed both theracialism ofEurope-Action and theethno-pluralism of GRECE.[25][19]
Following the Algerian independence in 1962,Europe-Action was among the first to oppose Algerian immigration (labeled "invasion").[19] The group defended a racial rather than geographical nationalism, proclaiming race to be "the new homeland, thehomeland of the flesh which should be defended with an animal-like ferocity."[26] Opposed to ethnic mix, they called forremigration,[19] arguing that "race mixing [was] nothing more than a slow genocide".[27] Calling for an end to development aid towards former colonies, they feared a future France "occupied bytwenty million Maghrebi Arabs andtwenty million Negro-Africans".[28][29]
In France, the significant immigration of colored elements is a grave issue […]. We also know the size of the North African population [...]. What is serious for the future: we know that the basis of European settlement, which allowed for civilizing expansion, was that of a white ethnic group. The destruction of this balance, which can be quick, will lead to our disappearance and that of our civilization.
— Dominique Venner,Europe-Action, nº 38, février 1966, p. 8.
Europe-Action promoted the project of creating a genetically improved social elite along with, "without futile sentimentality", the elimination of "biological waste",[30] "not through massacres but through eugenic processes".[29] They proposed to "eliminate biological foam" by "returning the mediocre elements of this class to their ranks and retain the valid elite" only, in order "not to allow the biological growth of waste".[31]
Their conception of Europe was not limited to the continent, and described as a "heart whose blood beats inJohannesburg and inQuebec City, inSydney andBudapest, aboard white caravels and spaceships, on every sea and in every desert in the world."[2][32]Europe-Action issue of June 1964 indeed grouped the US, France and South Africa together, as mere "provinces of this large motherland that is the white race."[33]
The "Dictionary of the militant", published inEurope-Action in May 1963, defined theOccident as the "community of the white peoples", thepeople itself being defined as a "biological unity confirmed by history".[34] The following definition ofnationalism is thus given: "doctrine that expresses in political terms the philosophy and the vital necessities of the white people".[35] According to political scientistStéphane François, this world view was influenced by theVölkisch idea of an organic entity gathering those of the same blood, the same culture and same destiny.[19]
Rejecting both the Europe of the nation-states advocated by theGaullists and theUnited States of Europe endorsed by theChristian democrats,Europe-Action supported a racialist Europe that would have been founded on its indigenous ethnic groups, uniting the white peoples of Europe within a powerful imperial entity eventually crowned by an international alliance with white-minority-ruled states likeRhodesia orSouth Africa.[19]
Initially conceived as a think tank founded on a magazine,Europe-Action gradually evolved towards a political movement.[29] Seeking to oppose the anti-intellectualism that had been a major hindrance to the right in the battle of ideas—notably against the Marxist set of concepts—Venner aimed at establishing a new radical right doctrine to be spread in wider society and bring about a nationalist cultural revolution.[2][36] He progressively accepted the democratic institutions and the emergence of a post-fascist society, arguing thatEurope-Action had to show the bureaucracy they were capable of running a state to win their support. DescribingEurope-Action members as "militants of a white nation", Venner concluded that nationalists shouldinfiltrate organizations, "however small, including unions, local newspapers, even youth hostels" in order to disseminate their ideas.[5][37]
Political scientistStéphane François describesEurope-Action as "the main structure in France that bridged WWII activists and the young post-war generations".[19]Jean-Yves Camus further adds that the "transition from French nationalism to the promotion of European identity, theorized byEurope-Action in the mid-1960s, disrupted the references of the French far-right by producing a gap that has not been repaired to date, separating integralsovereignists, for whom no level of sovereignty is legitimate except the Nation-State [...] from theidentitarians, for whom the Nation-State is an intermediate framework between being rooted in a region (in the sense of the German "Heimat") and belonging to the civilized framework of Europe."[38]
Europe-action theories indeed formed the ideological foundations of the think tankGRECE in 1968, and the magazine-movement has been described as the "embryonic form" of theNouvelle Droite.[2][39] The latter however distanced themselves fromEurope-Action's anti-communism and pro-colonial stance, in order to develop a critic aliberal capitalism and adopt aThird-Worldist point of view.[22] Many founding members of theethno-nationalist think tank were indeed formerly involved in the magazine.[40] GRECE and theNouvelle Droite inherited a number of themes fromEurope-Action, among them "the anti-Christian stance, a marked elitism, the racial notion of a united Europe, the seeds of a change from biological to cultural definitions of "difference", and the sophisticated inversion of terms like racism and anti-racism".[1] Another group led byPierre Bousquet,Jean Castrillo, andPierre Pauty established the magazineMilitant in 1967. They were later among the founders of theFront National in 1972, and at the origin of theFrench Nationalist Party in 1983.[41]
It was the transition from French nationalism to the promotion of European identity, theorised by Europe-Action in the mid-1960s, that upset the references of the French far-right by producing a gap that has not been repaired to date. This fracture separates integral sovereignists, for whom no level of sovereignty is legitimate except the Nation-State [...] from the identitarians, for whom the Nation-State is an intermediate framework between being rooted in a region (in the sense of the German "Heimat") and belonging to the framework of European civilization.