Over the past three decades, the far-right extremist (FRE) scene has undergone many shifts and changes: it has moved from offline to online; embraced the gaming culture; and there has been an increase in cross border activities and transnational networks, to name just a few examples. This factbook presents the scope of the FRE scene, from “classical” militant neo-Nazi groups to local protest groups that oppose perceived “Islamisation”, and to online like-minded people who consider themselves members of the alt-right fringe movement. The focus is on violent extremist groups or groups that promote or condone violence.
Just like Islamist extremism (IE), FRE radicalisation towards violence takes place at the intersection of an enabling environment and personal trajectory, where the actual process is triggered by personal experiences, kinship, friendship, group dynamics and socialisation (1 ). On the other hand, IE is partly rooted in ongoing armed conflicts and orchestrated by organisations and networks abroad, which indicates that FRE seems to partly grow out of other conditions.
This factbook gives an overview of fundamental elements; it does not provide an allincluding in-depth study of all the FRE movements across the EU. It would be impossible to provide such an overview due to the different shapes and varying impact of violent FRE movements per country (2 , 3 ). However, transnational shared elements are present, and many of the shifts and changes observed, are not limited to one specific FRE movement. For this reason, it is important to give an overview of the fundamental elements making up the current FRE scene.
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