The head of the list of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) party, Maximilian Krah, notably considered that an SS “is not automatically criminal”, in an interview published this weekend in the Italian daily La Repubblica. According to Alexandre Loubet, the decision to break with the AfD was made by Jordan Bardella on Tuesday afternoon.
“We had frank discussions, the lessons were not learned: we are drawing the consequences,” he explained, in reference to the countless controversies sparked by this German partner, as cumbersome as it seemed essential for maintain the Identity and Democracy (ID) group, in which the two parties sat until then.
Accounts to be given
Created in 2013, the populist, anti-migrant German party was on the rise until the beginning of the year, with polls giving it hope of coming in first with nearly 25% of the vote. But, in mid-January, the participation, revealed by the media, of some of its members in a meeting of the ultra-right to discuss a plan for the mass expulsion of foreigners and nationals deemed to be poorly assimilated had shocked the country.
In April, an investigation was opened for suspicion of Russian and Chinese financing against Maximilian Krah, outgoing MEP, one of whose assistants at the European Parliament, suspected of being a Chinese agent, had just been arrested.
Last week, one of the party’s figures, Björn Höcke, was fined 13,000 euros for using a Nazi slogan. In the past, he had already called the Holocaust monument in Berlin a “memorial of shame” and called for a “180-degree change” in the culture of remembrance in the country, leading the intelligence services across the Rhine to AfD surveillance.
The National Rally had requested explanations from its partner, deemed unsatisfactory, but postponing a final decision until after the poll. The AfD is now credited with around 15% of voting intentions, relegated to second, third or even fourth position.