The Nouvelle Droite (; ), sometimes shortened to the initialism ND, is a far-right political movement which emerged in France during the late 1960s. The Nouvelle Droite is the origin of the wider European New Right (ENR). Various scholars of political science have argued that it is a form of fascism or neo-fascism, although the movement eschews these terms.
The Nouvelle Droite began with the formation of Groupement de recherche et d'études pour la civilisation européenne (GRECE; Research and Study Group for European Civilization), a French group guided largely by the philosopher Alain de Benoist, in Nice in 1968. De Benoist and other early GRECE members had long been involved in far-right politics, and their new movement was influenced by older rightist currents of thought like the German conservative revolutionary movement. Although rejecting left-wing ideas of human equality, the Nouvelle Droite was also heavily influenced by the tactics of the New Left and some forms of Marxism. Particularly influential were the sociocultural ideas of the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, with ND members describing themselves as the "Gramscians of the Right". The ND achieved a level of mainstream respectability in France during the 1970s, although their reputation and influence declined following sustained liberal and leftist anti-fascist opposition. Members of the Nouvelle Droite joined several political parties, becoming a particularly strong influence within the far-right French National Front, while ND ideas also influenced far-right groups elsewhere in Europe. In the 21st century, the ND has influenced multiple far-right groups, such as the Identitarian movement and forms of national-anarchism.
The ND opposes multiculturalism and the mixing of different cultures within a single society, opposes liberal democracy and capitalism, and promotes localised forms of what it terms "organic democracy", with the intent of rooting out elements of oligarchy. It pushes for an "archeofuturistic" or a type of non-reactionary "revolutionary conservative" method to the reinvigoration of the Pan-European identity and culture, while encouraging the preservation of certain regions where Europeans and their Caucasian descendants may reside. Concurrently, it attempts to sustain the protection of the variance of ethnicities and identities around the globe, defending the right of each group of people to keep their own lands and regions to occupy. To achieve its goals, the ND promotes what it calls "metapolitics", seeking to influence and shift European culture in ways sympathetic to its cause over a lengthy period of time rather than by actively campaigning for office through political parties.
History
Following the end of the Second World War and the collapse of the Vichy regime, the French extreme-right was driven underground. It resurfaced as a force able to contest elections in the mid-1950s, when some far-right activists successfully returned to the public arena through the Poujadist movement. In the following two decades, the country's extreme-right movement then rallied around the cause of the French Empire, opposing the decolonisation movements that were gaining strength in Indochina and Algeria. A number of far-right paramilitary groups were formed in this environment, including the Secret Army Organisation (Organisation armée secrète - OAS) and the Revolutionary Army (Armée Révolutionnaire - AR). Adopting another approach, a number of extreme-right intellectuals decided that they would try to make many of their ideas more socially respectable through the creation of the Research and Study Group for European Civilisation (GRECE). The acronym means "Greece" in French, and the organization has emphasized the pagan values of Ancient Greece.