AfD too Nazi for Marine Le Pen

[Delbow]

Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD's) lead candidate in the European elections has said that members of the SS "weren't automatically criminals"

 

It's so bad that even Marine Le Pen has said it's urgent to make a clean break with AfD.

 

This is not the only indicator that AfD is fond of Germany's Nazi past, of course. In January, senior members met in secret with neo-Nazis and other far right wingers to discuss a plan to forcibly expel non-Aryan Germans from the country.

 

They also refer to the media as Lügenpresse (lying press) - a term coined by... the Nazis. 

 

There are other examples, I reckon @peak4 will have some.

 

"Nazi" is an overused word, but it is really obvious that AfD are neo-Nazis. There will still be gullible people who say "oh, they're just anti-immigration", but really the mask has slipped so much now that it's almost off.

[peak4]

Marine Le Pen seems to be trying to distance herself from those who's politics she used to embrace, though not necessarily form the politics themselves.

Is Marine Le Pen actually far right? It depends who you talk to Independent 2022
Le Pen’s policy proposals have only changed slightly from her 2012 and 2017 manifestos, but her image – and her party’s – has undergone a radical refurbishment over the last few years

Bannon plan for Europe-wide populist 'supergroup' sparks alarm     BBC July 1018  This was about his attempts to start up "The Movement"

In France too he has shared the stage with far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who reached the run-off in the 2017 presidential election only to be heavily defeated by Emmanuel Macron.

Only Alice Weidel of the far-right AfD said Mr Bannon's ideas were "very exciting and ambitious".

By August, AfD seemed to be going off the idea a bit

Far-right German leader sceptical of Bannon's anti-EU push     Euronews Aug 2018

He said the AfD only had close contacts with Austria's far-right Freedom Party (FPO), junior party in Austria's coalition government.

Former AfD leader Frauke Petry had always wanted to work with France's National Front, but that had not worked out.   [more on Austria later]

But by April the following year

Germany's AfD invites ex-Trump advisor Steve Bannon to conference   The Local  April 2019

A spokesman for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) confirmed to news agency DPA that Bannon has been asked to attend the 'Conference for a free media,' to be held on May 11th in Berlin for right-wing journalists and bloggers.

"We are arranging the details," an organizer told the weekly Der Spiegel, which said that British anti-EU politician Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party, has also been invited.

Germany's AfD invites ex-Trump aide Bannon to media conference   Reuters April 2019  Still not much joy with The Movement though (fortunately)

Bannon, a former chairman of the right-wing Breitbart.com website, has met several of Europe's populist groups with the aim of advising them before May's European elections but his efforts to act as a power broker have so far fallen flat.
Last year, he met France's far-right leader Marine Le Pen and he has said he plans to work with right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

I Guess he must have spoken to a few folk somewhere, as by May 2019
Steve Bannon Says Jewish Leaders Support Nationalism, Praises Nazi-Friendly AfD Party   Observer May 2019  I'll leave you to read this one fully.
"These people are good, descent people," said Bannon on Fox.

Hopefully purely coincidence, I don't know. by Dec2020 ; [I said I'd return to Austria]

Austrian police seize weapons intended for German far right   Al Jazeera Dec2020
Haul of weapons used to ‘establish a far-right network’ in Germany, Austrian interior minister says.

The Austrian police have seized a huge cache of automatic weapons, explosives and hand grenades intended to arm far-right “extremist” groups in Germany.

Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said on Saturday five men aged 21 to 53 with links to neo-Nazi groups were arrested following a series of house searches.

Meanwhile
Nigel Farage to Skip U.K. Election So He Can Focus on Helping Trump  New York Times, via arcive.ph
The populist British politician, a driving force behind Brexit, said he would not run in the July general election, citing the global importance of the American campaign.

 

[Longcol]

Living in France, it seems that the greatest opposition to Le Pen (and her dad before) is in the areas where the Resistance / Maquis were active in WWII and  Nazi atrocities were committed. War memorial in nearest town lists army, civilian and resistance deaths.

 

About 5 miles from our village is a memorial to a dozen or so locals who were rounded up and gunned down ny the Nazis.

 

Unsurprisingly, Le Pen election posters are ripped down or defaced.

 

 

[Vrsaljko]

The amount of attention paid to the far right and 'nazis' honestly baffles me. It's such a small amount of people that it's not even worth worrying about. They hold no political power, you don't see them on the streets protesting like the far left, and other than the odd knuckle dragger posing with a swastika, you wouldn't even know it was a thing.

[The_DADDY]

2 minutes ago, Vrsaljko said:

The amount of attention paid to the far right and 'nazis' honestly baffles me. It's such a small amount of people that it's not even worth worrying about. They hold no political power, you don't see them on the streets protesting like the far left, and other than the odd knuckle dragger posing with a swastika, you wouldn't even know it was a thing.

I agree. The far right have no power or real influence where as the radical left are everywhere. 

[Longcol]

21 minutes ago, The_DADDY said:

I agree. The far right have no power or real influence where as the radical left are everywhere. 

 

And yet we have far right leaders (or the main opposition) in a number of Europeam countries and South America. Where do the "radical left" have that power?

[Vrsaljko]

33 minutes ago, Longcol said:

 

And yet we have far right leaders (or the main opposition) in a number of Europeam countries and South America. Where do the "radical left" have that power?

 

Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Bolivia, Honduras, Cuba, North Korea to name a few off the top of my head...

 

And these days power is often more about cultural power than holding political office. Just look at how the Rwanda scheme has been thwarted at every opportunity despite the Tories being elected with a huge majority. You can get more done by controlling the institutions like the radical left now does with universitites and the large parts of the Civil Service etc.

[hackey lad]

Just now, Vrsaljko said:

 

Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Bolivia, Honduras, Cuba, North Korea to name a few off the top of my head...

 

And these days power is often more about cultural power than holding political office. Just look at how the Rwanda scheme has been thwarted at every opportunity despite the Tories being elected with a huge majority. You can get more done by controlling the institutions like the radical left now does with universitites and the large parts of the Civil Service etc.

[The_DADDY]

9 minutes ago, Vrsaljko said:

 

Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Bolivia, Honduras, Cuba, North Korea to name a few off the top of my head...

 

And these days power is often more about cultural power than holding political office. Just look at how the Rwanda scheme has been thwarted at every opportunity despite the Tories being elected with a huge majority. You can get more done by controlling the institutions like the radical left now does with universitites and the large parts of the Civil Service etc.

Excellent post 👏👏👏

[SheffieldForum]

19 minutes ago, Vrsaljko said:

 

Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Bolivia, Honduras, Cuba, North Korea to name a few off the top of my head...

 

And these days power is often more about cultural power than holding political office. Just look at how the Rwanda scheme has been thwarted at every opportunity despite the Tories being elected with a huge majority. You can get more done by controlling the institutions like the radical left now does with universitites and the large parts of the Civil Service etc.

The Rwanda scheme is, has and always will be a gimmick.

 

There was no mandate for the Rwanda scheme and the battles in parliament and the lords have shown it was controversial and wouldn’t legitimately pass — leading to attempted changes of legislation and challenges in several levels of court.

 

It isn’t, and never has been, a solution to the problem of immigration. It was a headline grabbing publicity stunt gone wrong and deserves to be confined to history, as it will be upon the formation of a new government.