Brussels, 21 May 2024
According to a report by French daily Libération, the Rassemblement National (National Rally, RN) considers to break up with Germany far-right and partly neo-nazist Allianz für Deutschland (Alliance for Germany, AfD). In the EU electoral campaign and prior to the French presidential elections, the RN faces growing public pressure for its cooperation with AfD MEPs in the EU Parliament Group Identity and Democracy (ID), including the controversial AfD lead EU candidate Maximilian Krah.
According to Libération, Jordan Bardella’s campaign director, Alexandre Loubet, announced Tuesday (May 21, 2024): “We will no longer sit with them in the next term,” The reason behind this move are several statements aiming at rehabilitating the Nazi-SS.
Such statements were made by AfD’s lead candidate for the June 9 European elections, Maximilian Krah, to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica: “I would never say that anyone wearing an SS uniform was automatically a criminal,” Krah said in an interview with the Italian daily dated May 18. “One must assess guilt on a case-by-case basis, by the end of the war, there were nearly a million SS. Even Günter Grass was part of the Waffen-SS,” he continued. He further emphasized: “Among the 900,000 SS members, there were also many peasants: there was certainly a high percentage of criminals, but not exclusively.”
Statements, revelations, and other legal accusations
In an internal message to the campaign team, which Libération was able to see, the RN spokespersons were instructed to “not comment further on the RN’s decision to no longer sit with the German party in the next European term,” while strongly condemning the remarks of their German politcal allies. “There can be no questioning, justification, or minimization of what belongs to the height of barbarity in the history of humanity,” wrote RN spokesperson Gaëtan Dussausaye. He concluded: “The RN is not accountable for the statements and actions of European allies…. Future RN MEPs will no longer sit in the same group as the AfD in the European Parliament.”
German turbulences that annoy Marine Le Pen
The media coverage of the German cousin’s turbulence in recent months has irritated Marine Le Pen, who asked the co-president of the party, Alice Weidel, to renounce in writing to include the “remigration” in her program. After complying, the German MP let several of her close associates speculate about the attachment of Mayotte to the Comoros, just as Le Pen was visiting the place. “The AfD would do better to deal with Germany’s problems, and I am upset by this situation,” she sharply retorted according to Libération. This weekend, on the sidelines of a rally organized in Madrid by the far-right Spanish party Vox, the Frenchwoman snapped again: “The AfD is not led. This poses a problem that we will need to discuss when we think about the future group.”
Sources – Libération, La Repubblica, and other media reports