Far-right alliance in European Parliament breaks up on nazism

Brussels – A break in the radical right in the European Parliament: The party of Marine Le Pen, Rassemblement National, which is likely to be one of the most represented in the next assembly among the nationalist forces, has officially broken with its German colleagues of AfD and announced that it will no longer be in the same parliamentary group, Identity and Democracy (ID).

This was written in a Republic correspondence from Berlin and Paris explaining that “after the interview to the spitzenkandidat Maximilian Krah in which the MEP claimed ‘I will never say that anyone who had an SS uniform was automatically a criminal,'” Thibaut François, head of international relations in Strasbourg for Le Pen’s party, announced to the Italian newspaper, “We will no longer ally ourselves with the AfD in the next legislature.” The MP also added that Rassemblement National’s decision will be applied “directly” after the June 9 elections, when the composition of the Identitarians will be decided. The Rassemblement’s president pro-tempore, Jordan Bardella, also informed the Libération newspaper of the split.

As its website reports, the ID group has 59 members, making it the sixth-largest group in the Parliament. In the legislature just ended it had MEPs from ten countries, most of whom came from the Lega, the French RN and the German AfD. Marco Zanni, from the Lega, was elected president of the group in July 2019. The group has two vice presidents, Jordan Bardella (France) and Gunnar Beck (Germany). It is not the group to which Fratelli d’Italia belongs, which is ECR.