The Rassemblement National (RN) prefers the risk of isolation to that of controversy. Two weeks ahead of the European elections, it is breaking with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, one of its main allies in the Identity and Democracy (ID) group in the European Parliament. "We will no longer sit with them in the next mandate," said Alexandre Loubet, director of the campaign led by Jordan Bardella, who made a final decision on Tuesday, May 21, speaking to the newspaper Libération.

Contacted by Le Monde, the RN confirmed the break, made "following recent statements by the AfD." Marine Le Pen had been preparing to make the decision official. "My mind is made up about the AfD," the three-time presidential candidate said in private last week. "A movement that has fallen under the sway of its most radical fringe no longer seems to me to be a reliable and suitable ally."

This was before the publication, in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica and in the Financial Times, of an interview with Maximilian Krah, the lead AfD candidate in the June 9 election. The MEP sparked yet another scandal for his party by arguing that not every member of the SS, the paramilitary organization central to Adolf Hitler's totalitarian project, should be automatically be considered a criminal: "One million soldiers wore the SS uniform. Can you really say that because someone was an officer in the Waffen-SS they were a criminal?"

Far from fearing the consequences that the RN might draw from the provocations and legal proceedings in which his movement is mired, Krah took advantage of the interview with La Repubblica to challenge his French partner: "If we are expelled, I doubt they will manage to reach the number of seven countries required to form a group."

Tired of having to explain itself at every AfD controversy, the RN is therefore taking the risk of lengthy negotiations in Brussels and Strasbourg, and of having to form a small group, deprived of representatives from Europe's largest country. As Le Pen herself told Le Monde in December 2023, "It's difficult to envisage a European strategy that ignores the Germans. It's the elephant in the room."

However, a "European strategy" is the least of the concerns of a party that is only looking ahead to 2027 and has never really been invested in European democracy. The separation between the two partners seemed inevitable to preserve the RN's image. Over the past few months, the AfD has been putting to the test the "co-ownership" staged by Le Pen to justify its links with parties with a declared radicalism.

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