Le Pen and Salvini break with AfD over statements by its European candidate about the SS

On the eve of the start of the electoral campaign for the European elections on 9 June, Marine Le Pen broke with her German allies in the AfD. The decision of the National Rally (RN, for its acronym in French), put forward by the French newspaper Freedom And this has been confirmed by several French media as a result of statements made over the weekend by Maximilian Krah candidate for the position of president For Europeans, the German far-right party.

In an interview with an Italian newspaper RepublicAmong other things, Krahn said that he would never say that “anyone who wore an SS uniform was outright a criminal.” “You have to assess the faults individually. By the end of the war, there were approximately one million SS men. Günter Grass was also in the Waffen-SS. My wife’s relatives were Germans who lived in Hungary, they had to choose between joining that country’s army or the SS. If they had enlisted as Germans in the Hungarian army, it would have been punishable by death. So, he joined the SS,” Krah said.

Jordan Bardella, president of the French far-right party which leads the RN list in the elections, decided “no longer to sit” with representatives of the Alternative for Germany (AfD, for its acronym in German) in the European Union. Is”. Parliament, his campaign manager, Alexandre Lobet, explained to AFP. “We had a frank dialogue” with the AfD, Lobet said. “The lessons were not learned, so we accepted the result,” he said, referring to the latest episode involving his most problematic partner in the run-up to the European elections.

Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini’s party League has also joined this decision. In a brief note, the party reported that, regarding the future formation of the Identity and Democracy (ID) group in the European Parliament, “As always, Matteo Salvini and Marine Le Pen are fully aligned and in agreement.”

“There were also many peasants among the 900,000 SS: undoubtedly, the percentage of criminals was high, but not all of them. I would never say that whoever wore an SS uniform was directly a criminal,” Krah said in the interview with the Italian newspaper, in which he was also asked about other controversies he has been involved in in recent weeks. Have been involved. His parliamentary assistant in the European Parliament was arrested in Germany in late April on charges of spying for China. And Krah himself has appeared in an investigation by Belgian authorities into alleged payments he received from Russia, which he has again denied in statements to the Italian newspaper.

one scam after another

These investigations also include the scandal caused by the revelations in January of the “migration plan”, i.e., the mass deportation of both foreign and German citizens, which was allegedly supported by party members. German investigative media Correctiv then published that a secret meeting had taken place in November between representatives of the AfD and members of the neo-Nazi Nebula to discuss a mass expulsion project of immigrants and Germans of foreign origin. The revelations were followed by massive demonstrations of disapproval in several cities across Germany.

Nevertheless, it is unclear whether the controversies and scandals of recent months will affect the Ultra formation’s results in the June 9 poll, although polls show a 15 percent drop in support nationally. But the AfD’s departure from the ID group – which includes the RN and the League as well as the Dutch Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom – could affect the balance in the future configuration of the European Parliament.