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Abstract
This article argues that parallel to and accompanying the populist backlash tormenting Western democratic societies, a new discourse has emerged to compete with liberal pluralism, progressive multiculturalism, and the ideology of universal human rights. It is a discourse running contrary to the positions expected of the exclusionist right. Rather than originating in a vulgar national-populist reaction against liberal democracy and minority rights, this competing perspective comes from an almost paradoxical synthesis of prefascist ideas developed in the early 20th century and current pro-diversity and anticolonialist theories.
In attempting to understand this perplexing ideological conjuncture, it can help to follow the ideological evolution of the French writer and ideologue of the French and European new right, Alain de Benoist. The ideas he developed in the 1980s and 1990s, and expanded in recent years, have contributed to synthesizing an ideological trend that is becoming central in the current debate on the populist backlash in Western democratic societies – right-wing postcolonialism. While de Benoist was not alone in this, he was one of the first to introduce and weaponize the discourse of the Weimar Conservative Revolution as a theory of emancipation for both Western repressed identities as for Third-World ones.

The idea of a Europe of its peoples, or a post-nation-state 'regionalist Europe', is largely applauded by radical democratic and post-colonial theorists who considered this development an antidote to nationalism. What is hardly heeded by liberal as well as left-wing intellectuals, however, is that several fascist and neo-fascist intellectuals during the inter-war and the post-war eras have also been attracted by the idea of a post-nation-state, 'Europe des peoples'. By analyzing the complementary ideologies of two French intellectuals associated with fascism and post-war neo-fascism – Pierre Drieu La Rochelle and Alain de Benoist – this article traces the attempts to shed new light onto some of the shortcomings embedded in the concept of the 'Europe des peoples'. Building upon Drieu and de Benoist's ideas on the future of Europe as a post-national exclusionist 'Europe of the peoples', this article sets an alert that a new type of ethnic exclusionism may be strengthened precisely with the end of old states nationalism.

AbstractWhile the idea of a Europe of its peoples, or a post‐nation‐state 'regionalist Europe' is largely applauded by liberal, radical democratic, and post‐colonial theorists, who welcome this development as an antidote to narrow nationalism, ideologues of the New Right had adopted this idea to their exclusionist political design. Based on what can be defined as 'multiculturalism of the Right', the New Right proposes a new European nationalist resurrection based upon the idea of the reemergence of multiple European organic identities that would set a cultural barrier against immigrant communities. In order to elaborate this plan the New Right makes use of the intellectual contribution of old anti‐liberal integralist sources at the fringes of fascism. The latter set the path for a European 'third way' in the 1930s and the New Right attempts to reestablish this trend in a post‐modern Europe. This article does not claim that Europe of the peoples is an anti‐liberal project, but asks to heed 'unexpected' political uses of the idea.

An examination of two ideological & political expressions of the politics of regionalism, the French New Right & Italy's Lega Nord party, challenges the liberal view that increased regionalism guarantees greater democratic accountability, & illustrates how ethnoregional strategies enhance the right-wing vision of a culturally homogeneous, immigrant-free, economically strong Europe. The leading ideological role played by the French New Right in the 1980s & early 1990s is described. Lega Nord's shift from demands for cultural autonomy to exclusionist ethnoregional populism & the New Right's ideological identification with this ideology are pointed out to link the intellectual thought & political praxis of the two movements. It is argued that radical nationalist ideas of the past are reproduced in today's post nation-state ethnoregional phenomenon & are quietly shaping what could be considered a neofascist regionalist movement. Emphasis is placed on the need for a new type of neoliberal regionalism in order to establish a "framework of resistance to Brussels' bureaucratic elites & the great European state.". 40 References. J. Lindroth