“Reverse Colonization” Early Narratives of Decline in the French New Right

This chapter traces the narrative of reverse colonization in the intellectual canon of the French New Right. It focuses on GRECE, an intellectual group created in 1968, and the thinker Alain de Benoist who re-worked the narrative of the “Algerian invasion” into an “anti-racist frame”. This new framing was well-received by the French far right and was incorporated into the Front National doctrine. As the narrative travelled on the margins of French intellectual thought, it took on new meanings in which religion, biology, and language became intertwined. In this chapter, the intellectual dispute between de Benoist and dissident GRECE member Guillaume Faye provides the site to study how narratives of national decline can carry different meanings about nation, race, and Europe.