Jeune Europe

Jeune Europe (Young Europe) was an Europeanist movement formed by Jean-François Thiriart in Belgium. Emile Lecerf, a later editor of the "Nouvel Europe Magazine", was one of Thiriart's associates.

The movement began as a largely disorganised collection of individuals, some related to the Mouvement d’Action Civique, opposed to the decolonization of the Belgian Congo and did not become fully organised until the Algerian War of Independence began to reach its climax. Forming into the Jeune Europe movement, they called for a unification of Europe into one country, in order that the individual states could stop being squeezed in the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, at the time Thiriart's two greatest bugbears. Adopting the Celtic cross as their emblem.

The group quickly grew in influence, with branches opening in France, Italy and Spain. They also participated in 1962 Conference at Venice, where they agreed to participate in the National Party of Europe, along with Oswald Mosley's Union Movement, Otto Strasser and others. However influence declined as Thiriart began to move towards a reconciliation with communism, seeking to include Russia in the proposed united Europe. In 1964, the movement took part in the municipal elections of Brussels.

"Jeune Europe" was dissolved in the 1970s.

See also

*Europeanism