Franco Freda
Encyclopedia
Franco "Giorgio" Freda is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, February 11, 1941) is one of the leading intellectuals of the post-war Italian far right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
. He has been accused of having personally contributed to the Piazza Fontana bombing
Piazza Fontana bombing
The Piazza Fontana Bombing was a terrorist attack that occurred on December 12, 1969 at 16:37, when a bomb exploded at the headquarters of Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana in Milan, Italy, killing 17 people and wounding 88...
.
Biography
Passionate about politics since the high school, Freda started his career as the leader of the FUAN-Caravella of PaduaPadua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
(the undergraduates association of the Italian Social Movement
Italian Social Movement
The Italian Social Movement , and later the Italian Social Movement–National Right , was a neo-fascist and post-fascist political party in Italy. Formed in 1946 by supporters of former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, the party became the fourth largest party in Italy by the early 1960s...
).
Graduated in law, Freda, supporter of an "Aryan aristocracy" and of nazionalsocialist
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
theories, in the '70s begun to critic from the right the MSI
Italian Social Movement
The Italian Social Movement , and later the Italian Social Movement–National Right , was a neo-fascist and post-fascist political party in Italy. Formed in 1946 by supporters of former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, the party became the fourth largest party in Italy by the early 1960s...
leadership, accusing it of compromising with the "agonizing democracy of the Republic". In 1963 he founded the political Group of Ar, on the track of the philosophy of Julius Evola
Julius Evola
Barone Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola also known as Julius Evola, was an Italian philosopher and esotericist...
, and managed a far-right library. Later, when the Group of Ar was disbanded, he founded the Edizioni di Ar ("Ar Publishing"), a militant publishing house of the far right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
. The Group of Ar and the publishing house were involved in reading, discussing and spreading the traditionalist
Traditionalist School
The term Traditionalist School is used by Mark Sedgwick and other authors to denote a school of thought, also known as Integral Traditionalism or Perennialism to denote an esoteric movement developed by authors such as French metaphysician René Guénon, German-Swiss...
philosophy of Julius Evola, Rene Guenon
René Guénon
René Guénon , also known as Shaykh `Abd al-Wahid Yahya was a French author and intellectual who remains an influential figure in the domain of metaphysics, having written on topics ranging from metaphysics, sacred science and traditional studies to symbolism and initiation.In his writings, he...
and associated thinkers.
Edizioni di Ar is still active today and continues to issue classics of the antimodern thought, like Arthur de Gobineau
Arthur de Gobineau
Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau was a French aristocrat, novelist and man of letters who became famous for developing the theory of the Aryan master race in his book An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races...
, Oswald Spengler
Oswald Spengler
Oswald Manuel Arnold Gottfried Spengler was a German historian and philosopher whose interests also included mathematics, science, and art. He is best known for his book The Decline of the West , published in 1918, which puts forth a cyclical theory of the rise and decline of civilizations...
, Friederich Nietzsche, Alfred Baeumler
Alfred Baeumler
Alfred Baeumler , was a German philosopher and pedagogue. From 1924 he taught at the Technische Universität Dresden, at first as an unsalaried lecturer Privatdozent...
, Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
and Julius Evola, and philosophical and political contemporary far-right essays.
In 1969 he publishes The Disintegration of the System , a seminal book for the far right extremism of those years. In this book Freda breaks the classical anticommunist stance of the far right and proposes a strategical alliance between the far left and the far right to help subverting the capitalist
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
society. This position, along with the proposal of a hierarchical, collectivist State which found its roots explicitly in Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
, deserved him the qualification of "nazimaoist". This original political ideology influenced many Italian groups of the far right of the '70s, especially Lotta di Popolo and Terza Posizione
Terza Posizione
The Terza Posizione was a far right group founded in Rome in 1978 . The TP rejected both capitalism and socialism, looking instead to found a political and economic Third Position, with its main influence being Julius Evola...
.
He defined himself a "scholar of ethnicity" and proposed the principles of a so-called "morphological racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
". He pleaded himself as an admirer of Hitler. After contacts with Pino Rauti
Pino Rauti
Giuseppe Umberto "Pino" Rauti is an Italian politician who has been a leading figure on the far right for many years...
, he participated to activities of Ordine Nuovo
Ordine Nuovo
Ordine Nuovo , full name Centro Studi Ordine Nuovo, "New Order Scholarship Center") was an Italian far right cultural and extra-parliamentary political and terrorist organization founded by Pino Rauti in 1956...
, even if he never formally joined the movement.
From 1971 he has been involved in several trials, of which the most famous is that for the Piazza Fontana bombing
Piazza Fontana bombing
The Piazza Fontana Bombing was a terrorist attack that occurred on December 12, 1969 at 16:37, when a bomb exploded at the headquarters of Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana in Milan, Italy, killing 17 people and wounding 88...
. He spent several years in jail for the crime of "subversive association".
In 1990 he founded the far right movement Fronte Nazionale
Fronte Nazionale
Fronte Nazionale is a name that has been used for several Neofascist political parties and movements in Italy.-Junio Valerio Borghese FN:...
and publishes the journal L'Antibancor, about economical and financial studies.
Fronte Nazionale
Fronte Nazionale
Fronte Nazionale is a name that has been used for several Neofascist political parties and movements in Italy.-Junio Valerio Borghese FN:...
, a neonazist movement that fought against globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
and multiethnic society
Multiethnic society
A multiethnic society is one with members belonging to more than one ethnic group, in contrast to societies which are ethnically homogenous. In practice, virtually all contemporary national societies are multiethnic...
, has been disbanded by the Italian government in 2000, on the grounds of the Mancino law. 49 members of Fronte Nazionale, among them Freda, have been found guilty of "reconstruction of the Fascist party" (which is illegal in Italy).
Freda is still present in the far right scene as an ideologue and publisher, although public appearances and writings are rare. Freda is well known in the far right scene for his unusual erudition, elegant writing style and uncompromising attitude.
Involvement in the Piazza Fontana bombing
The March 3, 1972 Franco Freda, the friend Giovanni Ventura and Pino RautiPino Rauti
Giuseppe Umberto "Pino" Rauti is an Italian politician who has been a leading figure on the far right for many years...
, a national dirigent of Italian Social Movement
Italian Social Movement
The Italian Social Movement , and later the Italian Social Movement–National Right , was a neo-fascist and post-fascist political party in Italy. Formed in 1946 by supporters of former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, the party became the fourth largest party in Italy by the early 1960s...
and founder of the neonazist movement Ordine Nuovo
Ordine Nuovo
Ordine Nuovo , full name Centro Studi Ordine Nuovo, "New Order Scholarship Center") was an Italian far right cultural and extra-parliamentary political and terrorist organization founded by Pino Rauti in 1956...
are arrested. They are accused of having planned the terrorist attacks of April 25, 1969 (at the Fair and Railway Station of Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
) and of the 8 and 9 August of the same year (on several trains). The two are later accused of the Piazza Fontana bombing
Piazza Fontana bombing
The Piazza Fontana Bombing was a terrorist attack that occurred on December 12, 1969 at 16:37, when a bomb exploded at the headquarters of Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana in Milan, Italy, killing 17 people and wounding 88...
.
Several elements brought the investigators to the neofascist area:
- The composition of the bombs used in Piazza Fontana was identical to that of the explosives that Ventura, a few days later the attacks, hid in the home of a friend.
- The timers, coming from a stock of fifty Diehl Junghans timers bought September 22, 1969 by Franco Freda in a Bologna store. Freda later explained that he bought the timers for Mohamed Selin Hamid, a sedicent agent of AlgeriaAlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
secret services (whose existence has been denied by Algerine authorities) for the Palestinian resistance. IsraelIsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
secret services declared that no timer of that kind has ever been used by Palestinians. - The bags where the bombs were hidden had been bought in a Paduan shop (the same city where Freda lived in), a couple of days before the attacks.
In 1974 the trial is moved from Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
to Catanzaro. The October 4, 1978 the police finds that Freda disappeared from the Catanzaro apartment where he was obliged to stay. February 23, 1979 he was pronounced guilty for the Piazza Fontana bombing and the court sentenced him to life imprisonment.
August 23, 1979 Freda is captured in Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
and extradited to Italy. Several trials followed. March 20, 1981 Freda is sentenced to 15 years of jail for "subversive association". The last sentence on the Piazza Fontana bombing, August 1, 1985, acquitted Freda for lack of evidence.
In 1990 new investigations on Piazza Fontana were made, and in the latest sentence, due to the declaration of new witnesses, Freda and Ventura are acknowledged to have had real responsibilities in the terrorist attack. However they cannot be put on trial again, because they were acquitted from the crime in 1985.