Rifts are deepening between the two major far-right players of the European Parliament, Germany’s AfD and Marine Pen’s Rassemblement Nationa
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Rifts are deepening between the two major far-right players of the European Parliament, Germany’s AfD and Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, threatening their European unity and the future of their common parliamentary group, the ID. Germany’s far-right AfD and France’s Rassemblement National (RN) dominate the far-right parliamentary group Identity & Democracy (ID) in the European Parliament. However, an investigative report on AfD members who supported the idea of “remigrating” German citizens with migration backgrounds is casting a major shadow on the relations between the two far-right parties. Le Pen already questioned the collaboration with the AfD over the incident in January. Various attempts by the AfD to appease their French counterpart in this regard have been fruitless so far, with the RN insisting that the AfD has to do more to distance itself from the controversial proposal. “The RN remains vigilant about the political line of its allies. We must therefore debate the AfD’s line internally,” Jean-Paul Garraud, leader of the RN delegation at the European Parliament, told Euractiv after recent attempts by the AfD to explain themselves. Neither a position paper by the AfD, where they toned down the meaning of “remigration” in their election programmes, nor informal bilateral meetings by some of the representatives in the European Parliament were able to clarify the issue. Last week, Alice Weidel, the AfD’s co-leader, even met Marine Le Pen in Paris to explain in person the party’s position on the issue – apparently to no avail. According to ID party sources, the relationship between RN and AfD has been damaged so severely that their future cooperation is highly questionable, several ID party sources said. The rift between the two could spell the end for the ID, their common parliamentary group, or at least the membership of said group for one of the parties, the sources added.
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How ironic. French fascists find German fascists too fascist. I'm sure there are RN members who, when they heard about the AfD scandal, thought it was a great idea. Le Pen may have softened the party image, but they're still fascists, softened or not.
I'm surprised the row isn't about the French having to hand back Alsace when the far-right has destroyed the EU.
