History
Giorgio 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]
