 | |
| Abbreviation | GRECE |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1968; 57 years ago (1968) |
| Founder | Alain de Benoist,Dominique Venner,Giorgio Locchi,Maurice Rollet,Pierre Vial,Jean-Claude Valla, and 34 others. |
| Purpose | |
TheGroupement de Recherche et d'Études pour la Civilisation Européenne ("Research and Study Group for European Civilization"), better known asGRECE, is a Frenchethnonationalistthink tank founded in 1968 to promote the ideas of theNouvelle Droite ("New Right"). GRECE founding memberAlain de Benoist has been described as its leader and "most authoritative spokesman".[1][2] Prominent former members includeGuillaume Faye andJean-Yves Le Gallou.
GRECE is deeply opposed tomulticulturalism,liberal democracy,capitalism, and distinguishes itself from othernational-conservative organizations in its specificrejection of Christianity and endorsement ofneopaganism. The group defends a nonreactionary "conservative revolution" aiming at the rejuvenation of apan-European identity andnationalism, while supporting the preservation and separation of ethnic groups and cultures at the worldwide level. GRECE members have coined and promoted influential concepts in the Westernfar right, such as "ethnopluralism" and "archeofuturism".
The dissolution of the neo-fascist organizationJeune Nation in 1958 and the disappearance of the pro-colonial paramilitary groupOrganisation Armée Secrète (OAS) in 1962, as well as the failures of far-right candidateJean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour in the1965 presidential election and of theEuropean Rally for Liberty (REL) in the1967 legislative election, are cited as events conducive to the foundation of GRECE and the development of itsmeta-political strategy.[3]
The philosophy of GRECE drew inspiration from earlier essays and theories developed by the euronationalist magazineEurope-Action (1963–66)—headed byDominique Venner and in whichAlain de Benoist worked as a journalist—, most notably Venner's manifestoPour une critique positive ("Towards a positive criticism"), written while imprisoned in 1962. Abandoning the myth of thecoup de force (putsch), Venner asserted that far-right movements had to be at the origin of a cultural and non-violent revolution, via the diffusion of nationalist ideas in society until they reachcultural dominance.[4][5] Another influence can be found in the "Manifesto of the Class of '60", published in 1960 by the initiators of theFederation of Nationalist Students (FEN), a far-right and pro-colonial students' organization. Committing themselves to "action of profound consequence", the authors sought to break with the "sterile activism" of violent insurrection previously espoused by Jeune Nation (1949–58). Venner and de Benoist had been previously active in Jeune Nation and the FEN, respectively.[6][7]
Following the electoral failure of the European Rally for Liberty (1966–1969), some of its members – among them de Benoist, helped by an informal group of FEN militants – decided to found a cultural association to promote their ideas. In the 1960s, de Benoist had contributed as a writer and journalist to develop Venner's thesis onEuropean nationalism, which served as an ideological basis for GRECE. Their theory was founded on a 'pan-racial' rather thanethnic orcivic conception of nationalism: thenation-states had to be dissolved for the peoples of the "Occident"—or the "white race"—to unite within a common European empire, on the grounds that they are the inheritors of a single civilization.[8]
GRECE was founded inNice,Provence in January 1968 by European – mostly French – nationalist activists, and officially launched on 17 January 1969.[9][10] Among the 40 founders wereAlain de Benoist,Dominique Venner,Giorgio Locchi,Maurice Rollet (who became its first president),Pierre Vial, andJean-Claude Valla.[11][note 1] Their aim was to establish ameta-political "laboratory of ideas" that would influence mainstream right-wing parties and the French society at large.[13] In May 1969, they circulated an internal document advising their members not to employ "outdated language" that might associate the group withfascism, and to socialize with Europe's most important decision-makers in order to influence their policies.[14]
In 1969,Jean-Yves Le Gallou became a member of theCercle Pareto, a students' club established inSciences Po at the end of 1968 byYvan Blot and closely linked to GRECE. They were joined byGuillaume Faye in 1970.[15] GRECE launched its own review,Nouvelle École, in February–March 1968. Initially distributed exclusively among its members to hold debates in a semi-academic style, the review became public in 1969.[16] From 1970 to 1982, Alain de Benoist worked has a journalist for the media outlets ofRaymond Bourgine,Le Spectacle du Monde andValeurs Actuelles.[17] Until its heyday in the late 1970s, however, the group remained mostly unknown to the general public.[18] Its members were focusing on the organization of conferences to influence the elites, withcercles de réflexion ("thinking groups") emerging in many cities of France and even abroad: the "Cercle Pareto" inSciences Po Paris, "Galillée" inLyon, "Critique Réaliste" inNantes, "Jean Médecin" inNice, "Bertrand Russel" in Toulon, "Pythéas" in Marseille, "Erwin-de-Steinbach" and "Wimpfeling" in Strasbourg, "Stamkunde" in Lilles, "Henry de Montherland" inBordeaux, "Erasme" inBrussels, and "Villebois-Mareuil" inJohannesburg.[19][18]
In September 1973, the magazineÉléments, which had been serving as the internal bulletin of GRECE until then, began its public circulation as the general public showcase of the think tank.[16][18] Frustrated with GRECE's long-term meta-political strategy, several members includingJean-Yves Le Gallou andYvan Blot established withHenry de Lesquen a group namedClub de l'Horloge in 1974 to serve as an elitethink tank seeking to adopt a more direct strategy, "entryism", that is the infiltration of political parties and senior public offices.[20][21] Several of them joined mainstream right-ring parties like theRally for the Republic and theUnion for French Democracy.[20]
In one of its few direct metapolitical interventions, GRECE called for the election of centre-right candidateValéry Giscard d'Estaing to thepresidency in 1974.[22] In 1975 and 1976, the organization created CLOSOR, a committee seeking to influence France's high-ranking military personnel, and GENE, intended for the teaching professionals. Each of them had its own special bulletin:Nation Armée andNouvelle Éducation, respectively.[23] In September 1976, GRECE founded the publishing company Copernic to propagate the Nouvelle Droite worldview to a larger European audience.[24][25] The following year, it published de Benoist's essayVu de droite ("See from right"), which was awarded thePrix de l'Essai of the prestigiousAcadémie Française in 1978.[26][25]
Building of the structure of influence they had established in the early 1970s – including reviews, conferences, publishing houses, andcercles –, GRECE members began to get public attention and influence from the late 1970s onward.[18] After his nomination as the cultural director ofLe Figaro in 1977,Louis Pauwels decided to found the weeklyFigaro Magazine, recruiting many GRECE members to the project: Alain de Benoist,Patrice de Plunkett (chosen as the assistant chief editor),Jean-Claude Valla, Yves Christen, Christian Durante,Michel Marmin, Grégory Pons.[26][17][18] Although they were not able to gain enough control to transform theFigaro Magazine into a real organ of propaganda, the ethno-nationalist think tank conserved a large influence on the magazine until 1981.[18] According to political scientist Harvey Simmons, "from the early 1970s to the early 1980s, the doctrine of GRECE had a major impact on the ideology of the entire right" in France.[22]
However, the growth of GRECE and the Nouvelle Droite was raising concerns in many liberal and leftist intellectual circles, which led to a violent media campaign against theNouvelle Droite andLe Figaro in 1979,[27][28] the year ending with a fight between the Jewish Defence Organization (OJD) and GRECE members in December.[18] Pauwels began to distance himself from the movement andLe Figaro withdrew its patronage.[18][28] From 1982 to 1992, de Benoist was confined to the redaction of theFigaro Magazine 'videos' section.[17] Now deprived of a popular platform, the Nouvelle Droite accelerated away from biological racism and toward the concept of "ethnopluralism", that is the claim that different ethno-cultural groups should be kept separate in order to preserve their historical and cultural differences.[28]
In 1980,Pierre Krebs established theThule-Seminar to operate as a branch of GRECE in Germany.[29] The same year, a group of scholars linked with GRECE,Jean Varenne,Jean Haudry and Jean-Paul Allard, founded the "Institute of Indo-European Studies" (IEIE) at theJean Moulin University Lyon 3 inLyon.[30] In 1988Pierre Vial obtained a teaching position at the same university,[31] as didBernard Notin [fr] andJacques Marlaud [fr], leading to the emergence of a GRECE "nucleus" exerting a certain influence in Lyon 3 during the 1980–1990s.[32]
Le Gallou grew in importance and served as a link between GRECE ideas andFront National (FN) after he joined the FN in 1985.[33] The party was influenced by GRECE's ideas and slogans, adopting the same emphasis on "ethno-cultural differentialism", although the Catholic faction in the FN rejected GRECE for their support ofpaganism.[34] Since the years 1979–1980, however, the Club de l'Horloge has distanced itself from GRECE's anti-Christian, anti-American and anti-capitalist positions, promoting instead an "integral neo-Darwinist" philosophy characterized by a form ofeconomic liberalism strongly tainted withethnic nationalism.[35][21] GRECE andEuropean New Right activists have criticized the Club de l'Horloge for simultaneously promoting economic neoliberalism andcultural conservatism, which are in their views contradictory positions.[22]
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In 1995 Pierre Vial,Jean Mabire andJean Haudry co-founded thenativist movementTerre et Peuple.[36]Guillaume Faye had temporarily left political activism in 1987 and worked for the hip-hop radio stationSkyrock in the 1990s.[37] He joined GRECE again in 1997 to introduce his concept of "archeofuturism".[38] After the publication of his bookThe Colonization of Europe in 2000, which earned him a criminal conviction for incitement to racial hatred,[39] he was expelled from GRECE at the request of de Benoist.[36]
Prominent personalities have collaborated with GRECE, notably via the membership to the patronage committee of its journalNouvelle École, includingRaymond Abellio,Franz Altheim,Maurice Bardèche,Anthony Burgess,Jean Cau,C. D. Darlington,Pierre Debray-Ritzen,Jacques de Mahieu,Mircea Eliade,Hans Eysenck,Julien Freund,Robert Gayre,Jean Haudry,Arthur Koestler,Manfred Mayrhofer,Edgar Polomé,Colin Renfrew,Marija Gimbutas,Marcel Le Glay,Konrad Lorenz,Thierry Maulnier,Armin Mohler,Louis Pauwels,Roger Pearson,Stefan Thomas Possony, orLouis Rougier.[40][18][41]
Although the extent of the relationship is debated by scholars, GRECE and theNouvelle Droite, and its German counterpart theNeue Rechte,[42] have influenced the ideological and political structure of the EuropeanIdentitarian Movement.[43][44] Part of thealt-right also claims to have been inspired by De Benoist's writings.[44]
TheInstitut Iliade [fr] (lit. 'Iliad Institute'), co-founded in 2014 by Le Gallou, has been described byLe Monde as "the heir of GRECE".[45]
The think tank initially borrowed several themes already present inEurope-Action : anti-Christianity and elitism, a pan-racial notion of European nationalism, and the seeds of a change from a biological to a cultural definition ofalterity.[46] Between 1962 and 1972, the core members of what would be GRECE embraced a Europeanism, which according toTaguieff andGriffin, was "still in the key of biologicalAryanism associated with the overtly neo-Nazi 'Message of Uppsala' and the publication ofEurope-Action." Between 1972 and 1987, under the influence ofArmin Mohler and theConservative Revolution, this discourse was progressively replaced with a cultural approach ofalterity based upon aNietzschean rejection ofegalitarianism and a call for a Europeanpalingenesis (heroic rebirth) via a return to the ancestral "Indo-European values". A third ideological phase, from 1984 to 1987, shifted towardsthird-worldism, the revival of the sacred, andethnopluralism.[5]
The group exhibits a hostility tomulticultural societies, viewed as a form of "ethnocide", and emphasizes the rights of groups over individuals.[47][48] GRECE is against both immigration and "remigration", favouring instead the separation of the different ethnic and cultural groups within France.[49] Significant foreign cultural elements inside a group ought to beculturally assimilated in a process ofcultural homogenization.[50]
Although it opposesliberal democracy, GRECE is not inherentlyanti-democratic and calls for localized form of what it calls "organic democracy".[51]
Influenced byMarxist thinkerAntonio Gramsci, GRECE aims at slowly infusing society with its ideas in the hope of achieving cultural hegemony,[49] sometimes called "right-wing Gramscism".[52] Metapolitics is defined byGuillaume Faye as the "social diffusion of ideas and cultural values for the sake of provoking profound, long-term, political transformation",[53] and by former GRECE president Jacques Marlaud as "any work of reflection or analysis, any diffusion of ideas, any cultural practice liable to influence political society over the long term. It is no longer a matter of taking power but of providing those in power with ideological, philosophical, and cultural nourishment that can shape (or contradict) their decisions."[52]
In 1974, GRECE membersJean Mabire,Maurice Rollet,Jean-Claude Valla andPierre Vial founded the scouting organizationEurope-Jeunesse to diffuse Nouvelle Droite ideas and values to the youth.[54]
Archeofuturism is a concept invented byGuillaume Faye in 1998 and defined as the reconciliation oftechnology andsciences with "archaic values". Faye described archeofuturism as a "vitalistconstructionism" (N.B. this is a completely different contextual usage meaning of 'Vitalist/ Vitalism' than the antiquated and disproved biological theoryVitalism; it refers rather to a fascist myth or metaphor of the body politic as like a living body, with a sole head, the Duce, El Caudillo or Fuhrer[55]) and stated that "archaic" should be understood in theAncient Greek meaning of the wordarchè, i.e. "the beginning" or "the foundation".[56]
Among the prominent figures of the European New Right who became members of GRECE were:
President:
Secretary general:
GRECE edits two journals,Éléments andNouvelle École.William H. Tucker andBruce Lincoln have describedNouvelle École as the "French version of theMankind Quarterly",[64][65] and historian James G. Shields as the equivalent of the GermanNeue Anthropologie.[66]
[A]mong the members of the patronage committee of Nouvelle Ecole, we find not only scholars above suspicion, like Manfred Mayrhofer, Edgar Polomé, Colin Renfrew, the late Arthur Koestler or the late Marija Gimbutas, but also the famous scholar Mircea Eliade...
