Marta Lorimer, "Europe As Ideological Resource: European Integration and Far Right Legitimation in France and Italy" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Apr 5, 2026

Marta Lorimer, a Lecturer in Politics at Cardiff University and expert on far-right politics and European integration. She recounts discovering neo-fascist Europeanism and traces how far-right groups reframed Europe as identity, liberty, threat, and national interest. Conversation covers Italian and French trajectories, strategic opportunism, EU transformations, and links to contemporary politics like remilitarization.

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ANECDOTE

Neo-Fascist Song Sparked The Research

Marta Lorimer encountered a neo-fascist song in Sardinia that praised a pan-European unity and it sparked her research interest.
That YouTube discovery led her to pursue a PhD and the book tracing far-right uses of Europe from 1978 onward.

INSIGHT

Europe Used As A Legitimating Identity

Far-right parties repurpose Europe as an identity separate from the EU to appear less nationalist and more collaborative.
Lorimer shows this transnational identity lets parties signal openness while retaining exclusionary nationalism, aiding legitimation.

INSIGHT

Core Concepts Persist Amid EU Change

The EU's changing institutional form and historical events shape far-right strategies, but core concepts they use remain stable.
Lorimer identifies recurring concepts: identity, liberty/autonomy, existential threat, and national interest across decades.

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How did the far right go from illegitimate fringe to contender for public office, and did Europe have anything to do with it? Europe As Ideological Resource: European Integration and Far Right Legitimation in France and Italy (Oxford UP, 2024) argues that European integration functioned as an ideological resource for far right parties looking for legitimation because it enabled them to refashion their political message in a more acceptable form, while maintaining the allegiance of their existing supporters.
Drawing on the qualitative analysis of over 400 documents produced by the Movimento Sociale Italiano/Alleanza Nazionale in Italy (1978-2009) and the Rassemblement National in France (1978-2019), Lorimer identifies the core concepts and discourses the parties used to talk about Europe, and the legitimation mechanisms associated with them. The book's narrative is developed through the analysis of four key concepts: the concept of identity, which enabled the parties 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 concept of threat, which helped them promote the idea that 'desperate times call for desperate measures; and the concept of national interest, which helped them stress commitment to core principles in their ideology.
Ever since its re-emergence on the European political scene, scholars have sought to explain the mainstreaming of the far right. By understanding how the process of European integration facilitated its transition from the margins to the mainstream, this book adds one piece to the puzzle of far right legitimation.

Marta Lorimer is a Lecturer in Politics at the School of Law and Politics at Cardiff University, where she teaches on European politics and populism, and co-editor of the journal Political Research Exchange. Her research on far-right politics and European integration has been published widely, including in the Journal of European Public Policy and the Journal of Common Market Studies.

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