Candidate selection in the stadium

Harmony was yesterday. Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen, leaders of the far-right Rassemblement National, in Lievin in July

Harmony was yesterday. Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen, leaders of the far-right Rassemblement National, in Lievin in July

Paris. At the Rassemblement national (RN) you would like to be happy, but you are not allowed to show it. Actually, the French right-wing extremist party should be popping the champagne corks because of the record result of almost 44 percent for the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt. But the two parties have no longer been officially in contact since the parliamentary group leader in the National Assembly - and, since July 7, presidential candidate - of the RN, Marine Le Pen, declared a break with the AfD in 2024. At that time, she used the excitement over SS sayings by the then German European Parliament candidate Maximilian Krah to provide supposed evidence that the others were right-wing extremists, but not her own party.

Therefore, there were no greetings from the RN to the AfD, and it was largely left to Éric Zemmour from the socio-politically extreme and at the same time more business-friendly small party Reconquête to loudly applaud the AfD. Zemmour is currently polling at three percent as the presidential candidate for the election planned for April and May 2027, while Marine Le Pen is well ahead of the other candidates at around 35 percent.

The chairwoman of the CGT trade union federation, Sophie Binet, complained in an interview that the employers' camp had decided to view the extreme right "as a normal party."

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