Right-wing EU faction splinters
AfD and Le Pen want to meet after upset
January 29, 2024, 1:45 p.m
Even Marine Le Pen said she was shocked when she found out about the Potsdam meeting and hinted at possible consequences for the joint EU faction with the AfD. She tries to smooth things over and announces a joint meeting to clarify misunderstandings.
After the threat of expulsion from the joint group in the EU Parliament because of the Potsdam meeting on “remigration”, the AfD parliamentary group has announced talks with the French right-wing populist Marine Le Pen. These should “straighten up what it looks like in reality,” said the parliamentary managing director of the AfD parliamentary group, Bernd Baumann.
Le Pen’s statements were based on inaccurate media reports. On Thursday, following reports from the Correctiv network about the Potsdam secret meeting with right-wing extremists, Le Pen clearly distanced himself from the AfD and threatened to end the joint group in the European Parliament. “I completely disagree with the proposals that were said to have been discussed at this meeting,” said Le Pen, referring to the plans discussed in Potsdam to expel millions of people with a migrant background from Germany.
Le Pen misunderstood reports
“Those were statements based on press reports that she took note of,” said Baumann. The reports were false “in the entirety of the tonalization.” Terms such as “deportation” and “mass expulsion” were not mentioned at the meeting. “These are attributions from this dubious Correctiv organ and large parts of the press,” said Baumann. Le Pen had also already promised talks with the AfD. “We will have to talk about these very big differences of opinion,” said the politician, who is currently leader of her right-wing populist Rassemblement National (RN) party in the French National Assembly.
AfD and RN both belong to the Identity and Democracy faction in the EU Parliament. RN party leader Jordan Bardella is its vice-chairman. According to Correctiv research, AfD politicians, members of the right-wing conservative Values Union, right-wing extremists and entrepreneurs met in a hotel in Potsdam in November 2023 to discuss the expulsion of millions of people with a migration background from Germany. Martin Sellner, long-time spokesman for Austria’s right-wing extremist “Identitarian Movement”, presented a plan for such a mass expulsion, euphemistically called “remigration”.