Eurodroite
Eurodroite (French pronunciation: [øʁɔdʁwat]; English: Euroright) was a far-right European political alliance that took part in the 1979 European Parliament election. It did not register as a European political party or a political group of the European Parliament because it only had four seats, all held by the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement. The Group of the European Right became its formal successor following the 1984 European Parliament election. HistoryGiorgio Almirante, the president of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI), envisioned to create an alliance of far-right political parties from Europe.[1][2] Almirante said that the objective of the alliance would be to "prevent the European Parliament shifting to the left" and that it would be strongly anti-communist.[1] At the founding congress of Eurodroite on 19 April 1978, Almirante's MSI was also joined by the French Party of New Forces (PFN) of Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour and New Force (FN) of Blas Piñar.[3] Shortly before the formation of Eurodroite, Tixier-Vignancour was supposed to be a candidate of Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front.[1] Another meeting of the Eurodroite was held on 27 June in Paris, with about two thousand participants, according to the Le Monde diplomatique newspaper.[1][4] Left-wing organisations held a counter-protest to the meeting in Paris.[4] Le Pen was critical of the Eurodroite project because of the participation of PFN.[1] In the 1979 European Parliament election, MSI was the only party from the Eurodroite that crossed the threshold, obtaining four seats. It was thus unable to form a group in the European Parliament.[5] The Eurodroite alliance was succeeded in 1984, when the Group of the European Right was officially formed.[6] FN and the National Political Union (EPEN) of former military dictator Georgios Papadopoulos were members of this new group, while PFN was replaced by Le Pen's National Front.[3] IdeologyThe Eurodroite was a far-right alliance composed of neo-fascist parties.[7] It opposed the rise of Eurocommunism.[8] MembersThe following parties were members of the Eurodroite alliance.[1][3] The FN and EPEN did not contest the 1979 election, as Spain and Greece were not yet member states of the European Union.[1][9]
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