French RN breaks with German AfD

6 months ago 35

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.

Also read: Le Pen questions EU-level alliance with AfD, spelling trouble for ID unity – Euractiv

These discussions preceded suspicions of foreign interference in the AfD’s ranks, including Krah and his team and Chinese espionage, and MEP Petr Bryston and Russian espionage.

Also read: Far-right AfD backpedals on ‘remigration’ ahead of meeting with Le Pen party.

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)