France’s Le Pen ‘vigilant’ over AfD, delays decision until after elections

Following espionage and foreign influence scandals involving Germany’s far-right party AfD, Marine Le Pen’s party said on Thursday (25 April) they would be “vigilant” and reassess ties with the party after the June elections.

Shortly after the arrest of an aide of AfD’s EU leader, Maximilian Krah, over allegations of spying for China, new media reports revealed the authorities are looking into Krah himself.

This came after Petr Bystron, a senior member of AfD and number two in the EU election list, was accused in early April of receiving money from Russia.

“As far as the AfD is concerned, we’re not ruling anything out. We remain very vigilant about their positions,” Rassemblement National’s (RN) EU election campaign director, Alexandre Loubet, said when asked by Euractiv.

Condemning “all forms of interference, whatever the power”, Loubet added that RN would refuse “one way or another” to “affiliate with people who may be behind it.”

Loubet, however, said any decision on cutting ties would be taken after the June vote.

“There is a presumption of innocence”, he said, adding, “Explanations are underway with AfD executives, and we will therefore advise the day after European elections on how we maintain relations with this party.”

RN is likely delaying a decision on their relationship with AfD until after the elections to have a clearer picture of their options for new alliances while awaiting developments on the espionage cases.

A split between AfD and RN, both forces projected to be the EU’s biggest far-right delegations in the European Parliament with 17 and 26 MEPs, respectively, after the elections, would mean deep trouble for the Identity and Democracy (ID) group, where both parties sit and share the leadership with Italy’s Lega party. 

If RN blacklists the Germans, it would likely mean one or the other would need to leave the group, and while everyone seems to be turning their back at AfD, Le Pen has many suitors.

In interviews with Euractiv, former Polish prime minister and leader of PiS Mateusz Morawiecki, expressed his desire to stretch ties with RN.

Meanwhile, Fidesz and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán are very keen to reshuffle the Parliament’s right and far-right forces, including Le Pen, to create an “effective counterforce” to the traditional pro-EU majority composed of socialists (S&D), liberals (Renew), and centre-right (EPP), his political director Balázs Orbán said.

The RN had already questioned their European alliance in the ID Group with AfD in January over allegations that some of the German party officials were involved in discussions about deporting German citizens with migration backgrounds, or “remigration.”

Most recently, Le Pen snapped at AfD after the party questioned the territorial status of the French overseas department of Mayotte in a letter to the German government. 

As for RN, the party paid off its debt with a Russian bank in September to end accusations it is close to President Vladimir Putin’s regime.

Le Pen and her party have always said that the use of a non-European bank was due to the refusal of French and European banks to provide her with financing “despite her excellent election results and opinion polls”.

[Edited by Alice Taylor]

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