The very discreet and distant reaction of the National Rally (RN, far right), Marine Le Pen’s party, to the resounding victory of Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the state of Saxony-Anhalt contrasts with the widespread alarm among French parties over the rise of the ultras in the neighboring country. Only the Reconquest party, led by Éric Zemmour, an ally of AfD in the European Parliament, has expressed satisfaction, albeit without excessive enthusiasm.
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Two years ago, the RN broke with the AfD in the European Parliament and since then they have sat in different groups. “A number of disagreements led us to distance ourselves from the AfD,” recalled RN president Jordan Bardella last Saturday at the political forum in Cernobbio (Italy). Bardella denied that a victory for the German party would lead to a new rapprochement. “It is not planned,” said Bardella, who is trying to maintain a moderate profile. However, he did defend the AfD by highlighting that “the electoral pressure” it exerted “helped move the Merz government, as Germany reinstated border controls a few months ago.”
After the triumph in Saxony-Anhalt, the main leaders of the RN preferred to remain silent. Only deputy Philippe Tanguy, after recalling the break with AfD, emphasized that one must “take note of a popular vote of frustration towards the system parties that do not manage immigration, the economy, and energy prices.”
The National Rally, whose candidate is the favorite for the upcoming French presidential elections next spring, must be careful not to congratulate itself on the advance of a party in which very extreme positions coexist, including neo-Nazis. The RN, under Marine Le Pen, has made a great effort for years to reject those approaches and that aesthetic, adopting the image of a civilized and respectable party.
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Despite the caution, the RN, through Bardella, made a mistake last week by accepting a photo with the British ultra leader Nigel Farage, of the Reform UK party, at an event in Birmingham. In a somewhat ridiculous scene, both posed with a giant enlargement of a supposed bilateral memorandum of understanding on migration policy, of no legal value, with both signatures, in the event they come to power in Paris and London. Its last point states that France commits to readmit all illegal immigrants intercepted by British coastguards in the English Channel and send them back to their countries of origin. Such a politically explosive and practically unfeasible commitment has been harshly criticized by all parties. Le Pen has remained silent. Bardella’s gesture is interpreted as a serious error of inexperience and naivety, unworthy of someone aspiring to be prime minister. Either he and his collaborators did not read the text carefully before signing it, or Farage slipped in the most controversial point at the last minute.
Zemmour’s response to what happened in Germany has not been as enthusiastic as one might imagine given their partnership with AfD in Europe. They are not very comfortable partners. According to Zemmour, the media will blame the voters for what happened, but the truth is that “the real culprits are those who, for half a century, treated as a crime what peoples understand as an evidence, the desire to remain themselves.”
There is a fundamental issue that is beginning to worry France about Germany’s evolution, but few express it publicly yet. It concerns the rearmament on the other side of the Rhine, the gigantic investment in defense, which would become a very problematic development, evoking ghosts of the past, if the ultras were to govern the country.
