A step too far right? France's RN splits with AfD over SS comments

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00:00 The French far right has split with the German AFD in a row over the SS. Max Krah said not

00:07 all the Nazi SS were criminals, a remark that borders on Holocaust denial, which of course

00:13 is an offence under French law. It's an embarrassment for Jordan Bardella, head of the list for

00:17 the European elections for the French national rally, who's usually side by side with Max

00:21 Krah in Brussels. Bardella says he'll no longer sit in the EU parliament if he's re-elected

00:26 in June alongside the leader of the AFD. Let's bring in Pierre Bénizet to get the real take

00:32 on what is actually going on here. Pierre, thanks for being with us. Because no matter

00:35 what Bardella might say, the fact he's had to make this statement suggests that he's

00:39 very embarrassed by all of this. Quite, and it's been quite an ongoing dispute between

00:48 the two brother parties in the European parliament ever since it was revealed in January that

00:56 the Alternative für Deutschland had had a congress where they discussed mass repatriation

01:02 of immigrants to their native countries and also the concept of re-migration. Re-migration

01:10 is, according to the AFD, Alternative für Deutschland, a concept where those migrants

01:18 who have been living in Germany for a long time but have not assimilated enough are to

01:25 be repatriated to their countries as well, along with those who do not hold the proper

01:31 documentation. And this scheme is not supported by the Rassemblement National in France. It

01:38 was made very clear by Marine Le Pen in January, even though Jordan Bardella himself did not

01:45 speak about the topic. But we know that between the two parties there have been numerous meetings

01:52 on this topic because these rang bells, dangerous ones, from the 1930s, 1940s, which are still

02:01 quite contentious, obviously, between the French and the Germans. And obviously, Jordan

02:08 Bardella has now taken the steps which was the logical one because what Maximilian Krah

02:15 has said in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica is obviously very provocative. We know that

02:21 in France the subject of the SS crimes, as well as in Italy, for instance, is still very

02:29 touchy, especially among the more nationalist voters and those who are very keen on history.

02:37 Plus, the French still have this problem of the Malgrenou, those Alsatians who were forced

02:46 into the SS at the end of the Second World War. So, it's still a touchy subject. Saying

02:52 that the SS did not commit crimes is going a step too far. So, it's obvious that the

02:57 Rassemblement National is going to step away and to take its distances from the Alternative

03:04 für Deutschland, although those two parties were the main ones in the identity and democracy

03:10 group of the European Parliament. So, there will be a choice to be made after June the

03:16 9th, after the end of the European elections. We'll see whether the Rassemblement National

03:21 is going to go away from that group, maybe to sit in the European Conservative and Reformists

03:27 where Giorgia Melloni's party, Fratelli d'Italia, sits. It remains to be seen. And what also

03:33 remains to be seen is the official reaction from other groups from this party, that is

03:39 the Lega Nord in Italy and the Volkspartie in Denmark, which also sit there and also

03:48 have obviously problems with the SS during the Second World War. So, Maximilian Krah

03:54 is also a member of the European Parliament who's been under the spotlight for the alleged

04:03 spying by China through his parliamentary assistant. So, he's a very contentious figure,

04:11 even though he's the Spitzenkandidat for the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany.

04:16 Yeah, Benazir, thank you for that wide-ranging and many-layered explanation about the situation

04:22 on this split between the French and German far-right. Pierre Benazir, our correspondent

04:25 there in Brussels, thank you very much indeed.

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