In this excerpt from the introduction to Europe as Ideological Resource, Marta Lorimer explores how European integration helped to mainstream far-right parties in Italy and France, transforming them from fringe groups to significant political contenders.

Watch a recording of Marta Lorimer presenting a short research showcase about the book at LSE in May 2024 on YouTube.

Europe as Ideological Resource: European Integration and Far Right Legitimation in France and Italy. Marta Lorimer. Oxford University Press. 2024.

When a haggard group of neo-fascists entered the Italian parliament in 1948, few expected them to hang around for long, let alone join a government. Similar thoughts would have crossed the minds of those following the early steps of a diverse group of French far-right activists uniting for the first time in 1972. Fast-forward to 1994, and the Italian neo-fascists are readying to become junior partners in a coalition government (and will, in due course and after some change, also become government leaders). Fast-forward to 2017, and the leader of the French far-right group is facing her biggest political challenge yet: persuading enough French voters to pick her as their presidential candidate in the second round of the French presidential elections.

Parties once considered pariahs entered the mainstream and increasingly found themselves in positions of power.

The two parties described above are the Movimento Sociale Italiano/Alleanza Nazionale (MSI/AN) and the Rassemblement National (RN, previously Front National). Their parable, however, is reflective of the broader trajectory of the far right in post-war Europe. Parties once considered pariahs entered the mainstream and increasingly found themselves in positions of power. This book tries to understand how these parties went from the margins to the mainstream by focusing specifically on how “Europe” and what they had to say about it helped them along the way.

Political, academic, and media commentaries alike have stressed how deeply critical of European integration far-right parties are, presenting Euroscepticism, or even “Europhobia”, as one of their distinguishing features.

Europe might appear as a counterintuitive topic to look at. Political, academic, and media commentaries alike have stressed how deeply critical of European integration far-right parties are, presenting Euroscepticism, or even “Europhobia”, as one of their distinguishing features.  Although there is some acknowledgement that the EU has represented an enabling feature in their success, providing them with funding, visibility, and political capital in times when they were ostracised at the domestic level their positions on European integration have mainly been considered as markers of marginalisation. In particular, their strong opposition to the EU project on both ideological and strategic grounds has been approached as a factor standing in the way of their access to power because of its fringe, rather than mainstream, character.

Euroscepticism’s nature as a “touchstone of dissent”, then, would appear not only to hinder the far right’s progress in domestic and European political systems by making its access to power more tortuous, but also to entrench its position at the margins. C0P4 This book challenges this assessment and demonstrates how the far right’s positions on European integration helped them appear more palatable. Its core argument is that as a relatively new and contentious political issue, European integration has functioned as a powerful ideological resource for far-right parties looking for legitimation because it allowed them to refashion their political message in a more acceptable form, while maintaining the allegiance of their core voters and supporters.

European integration […] allowed [far-right parties] to refashion their political message in a more acceptable form, while maintaining the allegiance of their core voters and supporters.

The argument is developed through an in-depth study of how the Movimento Sociale Italiano/Alleanza Nazionale in Italy and the Rassemblement National in France integrated Europe into their ideological frames, and to what effects. The book centres on four key concepts and discourses these parties associated with Europe: the concept of identity, which enabled them to transnationalise their message and create a positive association between themselves and Europe; the concept of liberty, which made it possible for them to foster an image of actors holding uncontroversial positions; the notion of threat, which helped them justify their measures by promoting the idea that “desperate times call for desperate measures”; and finally, the concept of national interest, which weaved with the other three, helping them stress commitment to core principles in their ideology even as a new issue was being introduced.

Ever since its re-emergence on the European political scene after the Second World War, scholars have sought to understand how the success and persistence of the far right could be explained. The normalisation and spread of its ideas have played a key role in its success, and present one of the key political challenges of our time in Europe and beyond. By understanding how the process of European integration facilitated far-right parties’ transition from illegitimate fringe to contenders for public office, this book adds one piece to the puzzle of understanding the process of legitimation and mainstreaming of the far right.

Note: This excerpt gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Image credit: Stefano Chiacchiarini ’74 on Shutterstock.