Tuesday, May 21, 2024, 10:27 p.m.
National Rally, Marine Le Pen’s far-right French party, have decided to break with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) after a succession of controversies involving the ultra-German formation. The last one, whitewash the SS. They will no longer sit together in the same group in the European Parliament, as confirmed by Jordan Bardella, head of the National Group list for the June 9 elections, in a television debate.
The fracture between both formations is due to the controversy that arose following an interview by MEP Maximilian Krah, head of the AfD list for the European elections, with the Italian newspaper ‘La Reppublica’. “Germans should be proud of their ancestors,” he said. “Even if they are SS?” the newspaper asked. “That depends on what they’ve done,” he added. »I will never say that anyone wearing an SS uniform would automatically be a criminal. Guilt must be evaluated, case by case. By the end of the war, there were almost a million SS. Even Günter Grass (Nobel Prize winner for Literature) was part of the Waffen-SS. Among the 900,000 SS there were also many farmers: there was surely a high percentage of criminals, but not only,” he considered.
Bardella considers that the AfD has crossed “the red line” with these statements by Krah, whom in April Justice announced an investigation into suspicions of Russian and Chinese financing. After the announcement of National Regrouping, Italian Matteo Salvini’s League stated that “as always, Salvini and Le Pen are perfectly aligned and in agreement,” which also suggests the end of its relationship with the Germans.
National Rally (RN) and Alternative for Germany were part of the Identity and Democracy (ID) group of the European Parliament for five years. The French far-right MEPs have 18 seats and the Germans 10 of the 63 that this group made up of nationalist, ultra and eurosceptic political forces has.
«New allies»
“The National Rally will have new allies at the end of the European elections and will no longer sit next to the Alternative for Germany,” summarized Marine Le Pen’s right-hand woman, who did not want to specify whether it will be the French party that will leave the group or leave it. the German will do. “The groups are reset to zero after the June 9 vote,” Bardella explained in a debate on the LCI network with other French candidates.
Krah’s controversial statements were enough for Le Pen to decide to break with the AfD. Not in vain, when she assumed the reins of the French extreme right in 2011, she began a process of “dediabolization” of the party founded by his father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, under the name of the National Front.
Marine Le Pen’s party is the favorite for the European elections in France. If these elections were held today, Jordan Bardella’s list would obtain 32% of the votes, according to a recent Ifop-Fiducial survey for LCI, Sud Radio and Le Figaro. Valérie Hayer, candidate of Macron’s party, would obtain 16.5%, closely followed by the socialist candidate Raphaël Glucksmann (15%), who has managed to close the gap in recent weeks. The far-left political force La Francia Insumisa and Los Republicanos (moderate right) are tied at 7.5%, followed by Éric Zemmour and Marion Maréchal’s Reconquista (6%) and the Ecologists (5.5%).
In the 2019 European elections, the National Group was already the most supported party, obtaining 23.24% of the votes. In second place was Macron’s party, with 22.19%, followed by Europe-Ecology The Greens (13.48%), the right (8.48%), the far-left political force La Francia Insumisa (6 .31%) and the Socialist Party (6.19%).
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