The origin of the Carrefour de l'Horloge can be traced back to the "Cercle Pareto", a club established in Science Po by students associated with GRECE, an ethno-nationalist think-tank founded in January 1968 by Alain de Benoist and other far-right militants. The Cercle was founded at the end of the same year by Yvan Blot and other students hostile to the left-wing May 1968 unrests. He was soon joined by Jean-Yves Le Gallou (1969), Guillaume Faye (1970), Daniel Garrigue, and Georges-Henri Bousquet.