On Friday, February 21, just a few hours before his first public appearance in Washington, Jordan Bardella discovered the ambiguities of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. The president of Rassemblement National decided to cancel his speech at the major annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), one of the most influential organizations on the American right, which is trying to foster the emergence of an international populism. In a statement, Bardella justified his decision by the "gesture alluding to Nazi ideology" performed on stage on Thursday by Steve Bannon, former special adviser to Donald Trump and host of the famous podcast "War Room."

Le Monde informed Bannon of the cancellation on Friday morning. The host, a pro-Trump ideologue, had just arrived near his broadcasting set, in one of the conference's gigantic halls. "It's ridiculous," he commented. "I did the same thing to the Front National when I was invited to speak a few years ago. It's just a salute to the crowd." During this appearance in Lille, in 2018, Bannon had been applauded on stage by Marine Le Pen. "Let them call you 'racist,'" the adviser shouted to the audience. "Let them call you 'xenophobes.' Let them call you 'nativists.' Wear it as a badge of honor." However, observers at the time did not notice any gesture resembling a Nazi salute.

"If he cancels," Bannon said to Le Monde on Friday about Bardella, "it means he's not fit to lead, he has no guts. He needs to grow up ... If that's true, there's no chance he'll lead France. Zero chance. To be a leader in this movement, in the world, you absolutely have to be like [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orban. You have to be fierce. You have to be like Trump. You have to say to these people, 'Fuck you. We're winning, and we're not going to play your little games.'" Several times, Bannon asked for confirmation of the cancellation. He was told that a press release had been issued. "If he doesn't have the balls to come here, and face these media, he's a pussy, and a pussy is not going to lead France. That's one thing Macron would do."

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