in October 1972, becoming a member of its directing committee. But Gaucher then participated in the split in 1974 leading to the creation of the Parti des forces nouvelles (PFN), gathering radical activists who considered Jean-Marie Le Pen to be too "moderate." There, he contributed to the magazine Initiative nationale. Gaucher was a member of the central committee of the PFN in 1974, and then of the political bureau in 1976. He was the PFN's representative during the Eurodroite meeting in Paris on 28 June 1978, which gathered the Italian MSI, the Spanish Fuerza Nueva and the Belgian Forces Nouvelles along with the PFN for the 1979 European elections. In 1979, he quit the PFN along with François Brigneau to rejoin the FN, at the request of Jean-Pierre Stirbois. Career in the FN (1980s–1990s) Roland Gaucher entered the European Parliament in 1986 under the banner of the FN, replacing Dominique Chaboche, and was vice-president of the European delegation for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). He was also elected as regional counsellor of the Picardy region (1986–1987) and then of the Franche-Comté (1992–1998). He remained an active member of the FN from 1981 to 1993. He successfully sued Le Monde and L'Est Républicain for defamation in 1992, which accused him of being a former Waffen-SS. He founded in 1984 the FN's weekly National-Hebdo, of which he was chief editor until 1993. He also directed Le Crapouillot, which he owned, from 1991 to 1994. In 1993, he took his distances with Le Pen's FN, charging it of being too institutional. Revelations by the press on his past also had a role in this decision. Although he stop paying his membership to the FN in August 1994, he remained "apparenté FN" in the Franche-Comté regional council. He got closer at this time to other far-right structures, such as the Militant, led by his friend Jean Castrillo, and Jean-François Touzé's Alliance Populaire (Popular Alliance). He also collaborated articles to the Unité Radicale 's website in 2001–2002, a party close to the Third Position's ideas, and took part to one of its meetings on 22 September 2001. He also wrote a few articles for Christian Bouchet, leader of Unité Radicale, until 2005 and also for Philippe Randa. Gaucher also signed the call for "national reconciliation" between the FN and Bruno Mégret's National Republican Movement (MNR) in 2001. Gaucher, who had once declared in