French RN
breaks with German AfD
Rassemblement
National’s (RN) President Jordan Bardella announced on Tuesday that the party
will end the alliance with his German counterpart Alternative for Germany
(AfD), a fellow member of the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) group.
Politics
Paul
Messad
EURACTIV.fr
French
far right party RN launches European parliament election campaign in Marseille
“I
confirm that we will no longer sit together. The AfD has crossed red lines,”
Bardella said in a debate on French TV channel LCI Tuesday evening.
[EPA-EFE/Guillaume Horcajuelo]
Rassemblement
National’s (RN) President Jordan Bardella announced on Tuesday that the party
will end the alliance with his German counterpart Alternative for Germany
(AfD), a fellow member of the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) group.
“I
confirm that we will no longer sit together. The AfD has crossed red lines,”
Bardella said in a debate on French TV channel LCI Tuesday (21 May) evening.
This
decision follows what the French far-right party RN deems a problematic comment
of AfD’s European election lead candidate, Maximilian Krah.
“I
wouldn’t say that anyone wearing an SS uniform is automatically a criminal”,
Krah told the Italian press on Saturday (18 May) about the Nazi’s elite assault
paramilitary troops.
Bardella
answered clearly: “As a result, the RN will have new allies after the
elections. The European Parliament groups will be reset to zero after the 9
June ballot.”
The last
drop
This is
not the AfD party’s first scandal involving Nazi history. In April, a German
court imposed a €13,000 fine on AfD’s leading figure Björn Höcke for using on
several occasions the nazi slogan “Alles für Deutschland” (“Everything for
Germany”).
The
relationship between the ID group’s second-largest delegation RN and the third
one, AfD, has been deteriorating for months.
Recently,
revelations by the German media Correctiv of a meeting in Potsdam involving
ultra-right group and AfD’s members to talk about a programme of “remigration”
– i.e. effective deportation – of immigrants and Germans of foreign origin
added fuel to the fire.
RN leader
Marine Le Pen asked her German allies to shed all necessary light on the matter
and question their alliance.
These
discussions preceded suspicions of foreign interference in the AfD’s ranks,
including Krah and his team and Chinese espionage, and MP Petr Bystron and
Russian espionage.
Reshuffle
in sight
However,
when questioned by Euractiv, RN said no decision could be taken before the
results of June’s 6-9 European election, which would determine the future
balance and management of the different parties.
In simple
terms, a poor result from the AfD would ensure it would be ostracised by the
RN. However, according to Europe Elects data for Euractiv, the party currently
has 17% of voting intentions, making it the second-strongest force in Germany.
But the
RN, which leads the latest polls in France with 32% of votes intentions, is now
refusing to sit with AfD after the elections.
As a
result, “it’s obvious that the composition and layout of the groups will be
different after 9 June,” Bardella campaign director and RN MP Alexandre Loubet
tells Euractiv.
In a more
general approach, “ID could also merge with another group, a new group could
emerge, etc. For the moment, there’s no hierarchy in the future strategy,” he
added.
“We are
talking to a huge number of parties, as evidenced by our participation in the
EuropaViva event”, i.e. the conservative rally organised on 17-19 May in Madrid
by the far-right Spanish party Vox sitting in the Conservative group ECR.
Le Pen on
tour
Le Pen
was in the front row all throughout the main event, prominently positioned
between Vox party president Santiago Abascal and its lead candidate for the EU
elections, Jorge Buxadé.
Le Pen
also took advantage of the opportunity to meet the vice president of Hungarian
Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party, Kinga Gal. Fidesz and its 12 MEPs
are not members of any group in the Parliament for the moment, and it is
unclear which group they will join after the elections.
No AfD
representatives took part in the event, or the most recent European
conservative events held in Brussels and Budapest in April.
“The
parties are free to invite whomever they like. In fact, there are quite a few
reservations about some of the AfD’s firm positions. We take note of this,”
Thibaut François, secretary general of the ID group and RN MP, told Euractiv.
The
rupture measure taken by the RN has been communicated to all delegations of the
ID group, Loubet informed Euractiv.
The ID
group’s leading Italian party, La Lega, told the press that “as always, Matteo
Salvini and Marine Le Pen are perfectly aligned and in agreement.”
(Paul
Messad | Euractiv.fr, Alessia Peretti and Kjeld Neubert contributed to the
article)
May 22,
2024 - 07:08
Last
updated: Oct 1, 2024 - 17:41
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