Party of New Forces Parti des forces nouvelles | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Founded | November 1974 (1974-11) |
| Dissolved | 1986 (1986) |
| Split from | National Front Ordre Nouveau |
| Political position | Far-right |
Parti des forces nouvelles (PFN) orParty of New Forces[1] was aFrench far-rightpolitical party formed in November 1974 from theComité faire front, a group of anti-Jean-Marie Le Pen dissidents who had split from theNational Front (FN).
The group included amongst its early members most of the membership ofOrdre Nouveau, which had dissolved not long before the formation of the PFN, Alain Robert (the founder ofOccident and theGroupe Union Défense or GUD), the academic Pascal Gauchon, the journalistsFrançois Brigneau andRoland Gaucher and the draughtsman Jack Marchal[citation needed]. A youth movement,Front de la jeunesse, was formed, although the party was also closely linked to GUD[citation needed]. The ON militants had formed a group called theFaire Front and in September 1973 merged into theFront National, isolating leaderJean-Marie le Pen by taking two-thirds of the seats on the party's national executive[citation needed]. However, in a court case that followed le Pen succeeded in gaining the upper hand, forcing the group to split from his party and establish the PFN as an alternative group in 1975.[2]
Positioned on the far right, the PFN also sought links with the more mainstream right and joined former members of theOrganisation armée secrète in campaigning forValéry Giscard d'Estaing in 1974.[3] The group also launched its own well-produced journal,Initiative nationale, organised protests against the 1977 visit toParis byLeonid Brezhnev (on the pretext of his support for thePolisario Front, which had taken French hostages) and in 1979 launched theEurodroite alliance with theItalian Social Movement,Fuerza Nueva and theBelgianPFN.[4] The party ran for the1979 European elections under the nameUnion française pour l'Eurodroite (led byJean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour), winning 1.3% of the vote[citation needed]. They would go on to have members elected to town councils in 1983 as part of theRally for the Republic (RPR)-Union for French Democracy (UDF) list[citation needed]. Following the 1979 European elections, Roland Gaucher, who had been in charge ofInitiative nationale, left the PFN along with François Brigneau to join again theNational Front (FN)[citation needed].
The party also endured failure, notably in 1981 when they were unable to secure the 500 signatures necessary to get Pascal Gauchon as a candidate for the presidency[citation needed]. Following this set-back leadership fell into the hands of young members Roland Hélie, Didier Lecerf, Jack Marchal and Olivier Cazal, with former leaders such asHervé Novelli and Alain Robert leaving to join theNational Centre of Independents and Peasants[citation needed]. The party then became involved inanti-communism activities, occupyingFrench Communist Party ministries and joining RPR supporters in breaking up a rally by communist ex-servicemen in a move that provoked scandal for the RPR[citation needed].
The party itself split in 1986 with a European group known asParti des forces nationalistes splitting from a tendency rechristenedNatrope (Nationalistes européens), which was close to theNouvelle Droite ideas ofAlain de Benoist andGRECE[citation needed]. Although both groups continued for a spell it effectively marked the end of the PFN as any sort of political force[citation needed].
