Mouvement d'Action Civique

Mouvement d'Action Civique (French pronunciation: [muvmɑ̃ daksjɔ̃ sivik], MAC; English: Movement for Social Action)^[2] was a minor far-right political movement in Belgium during the 1960s. The party's logo, a Celtic cross, was adopted in 1961 and was also the logo of the successor party, Jeune Europe.^[1]

Movement for Social Action Mouvement d'Action Civique
Founded	1960; 64 years ago (1960)[a]
Dissolved	1963; 61 years ago (1963)
Preceded by	Action and Defence Committee for Belgians in Africa[b][1]
Succeeded by	Jeune Europe
Newspaper	Belgique-Afrique[1]
Ideology	Fascism[1] Anti-communism[1] Belgian colonialism[1] Ultranationalism[1] European nationalism[1]
Political position	Far-right[1][2]
European affiliation	National Party of Europe
Colours	Black
Politics of Belgium Political parties Elections

The origins of the MAC lay in the 1960 independence of the Belgian Congo and the resulting Congo Crisis which saw the vast majority of white colonials, who were largely French-speaking, return to Belgium.^[3] From within this group a number of extremist organisation began to grow up, most notably the Comité d'Action et de Défense des Belges d'Afrique (CADBA or Committee for Action and the Defence of African Belgians), which had worked against the decolonization of the Belgian Congo. When this aim was not forthcoming (and became increasingly undesirable due to the trouble in Congo and the return of most Belgians) CADBA reinvented itself as the MAC, becoming more of an extremist white armed group. A minor movement, it worked with Jeune Europe domestically, as well as the British Union Movement and the Organisation armée secrète in France and was a founder member of the National Party of Europe.

Notes

1. The organisation officially formulated itself as the Mouvement d'Action Civique in September 1962.^[1]
2. Comité d'Action et de Défense des Belges d'Afrique

References

1. "Nouvelles formes et tendances d'extrême droite en Belgique" [New forms and trends of the extreme right in Belgium.]. Courrier hebdomadaire du CRISP (in French) (140). Centre de recherche et d'information socio-politiques: 1–22. doi:10.3917/cris.140.0001.
2. Cheles, Luciano; Ferguson, Ronald; Vaughan, Michalina, eds. (1995). The Far Right in Western and Eastern Europe. Longman. pp. 245–255. ISBN 978-0582238817.
3. Paul Hainsworth, The Extreme Right in Europe and the USA, Pinter, 1992, p. 130