(STRASBOURG) - Less than a year after it formed, the extreme right faction in the European Parliament fell apart Wednesday, torn asunder by a rift with its roots in the expulsion of Romanians from Italy.

Applause, and not a little pandemonium, broke out after the announcement of the demise of the "Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty" (ITS) faction was made at the assembly in Strasbourg.

An Austrian deputy complained publicly that French National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen had made an obscene gesture to the house.

"We are happy that this group, which does not belong in European democracy, has been dissolved," said Martin Schulz, a German socialist MEP once branded a Nazi concentration camp trusty by former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi.

"The good news is that the (grouping) of the ultra-nationalists no longer exists and cannot use the money of the European taxpayer to support its xenophobia and neo-fascism," he said in a statement.

The seeds of ITS's collapse were sown last week by Alessandra Mussolini -- the grand-daughter of Italian war-time dictator Benito Mussolini -- who "insulted the Romanian people", according to a Romanian ITS members.

The Greater Romania Party (PRM) said her "insults" came in comments about the expulsion of dozens of Romanians from Italy, after a Romanian gypsy was arrested last week over the murder of the wife of an Italian naval officer.

It quoted Mussolini as saying in a Romanian newspaper on November 2: "Breaking the law has become a way of life for Romanians. However, it is not about petty crimes, but horrifying crimes, this one gives goose bumps."

By withdrawing, PRM took away five deputies too many. Under assembly rules, at least 20 MEPs from five EU member states are needed to form a faction, and win access to official funds and greater speaking rights.

"The straw that broke the camel's back," said Romanian MEP and former ITS deputy chairman Eugen Mihaescu, was the "unacceptable amalgam" Mussolini made "between criminal gypsies and the entire Romanian population".

On the eve of the collapse, Alessandra Mussolini stood defiant.

"I'm staying because the others are going," she said. "They insulted me for electoral reasons."

The ITS faction, which formed in January, was only made possible after Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU on January 1, and the PRM's five Romanian MEPs signed up, as well as one Bulgarian parliamentarian.

Its ranks include seven members of the anti-immigrant French National Front, including its president Le Pen and his daughter Marine, along with the five Romanian deputies, three Flemish nationalists from Belgium and two Italians.

PRM's leader Corneliu Vadim Tudor has been accused of xenophobia and anti-Semitism.

But Mihaescu suggested troubles had been on the horizon for some time.

"We didn't feel right in this group," he said, noting that his party had been against re-drawing Europe's borders, as the Flemish nationalist Vlaams Belang party "wants to cut Belgium in two".

"We don't like to sit alongside people accused of tax fraud," he said, in an apparent reference to British independent MEP Ashley Mote, who was found guilty in August of 21 charges of deception by falsely claiming state benefits.

"This collection of unsavoury European politicians were united only by hatred -- be it of other races, nationalities, sexualities or, ironically, the EU -- and it was only a matter of time before they succumbed to a hatred of each other as well," said British Green MEP Jean Lambert.

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