France’s far-right leaders have met the ambassadors of Germany and Israel in recent months as their party, once deemed antisemitic, seeks to court foreign envoys in the run-up to next year’s presidential elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally (RN) party is eyeing its best chance yet at taking power, with President Emmanuel Macron stepping down after hitting the two-term limit.<\/p>\n
Le Pen hopes to run for president for a fourth time in 2027, after twice making it to the runoffs against Macron in the last two votes.<\/p>\n
But if an appeals court in July bars the 57-year-old from public office over an alleged fake jobs scam in European Parliament, her lieutenant Jordan Bardella, 30, is expected to run in her place.<\/p>\n
France is home to western Europe’s largest Jewish population, at around half a million people.<\/p>\n
Le Pen has long sought to make the party she inherited from her father Jean-Marie more palatable, including by distancing it from the antisemitic legacy of a man convicted for Holocaust denial.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As polls suggest she or Bardella could well lead in the first round of the election, the strategy seems to have paid off.<\/p>\n
Bardella, who is RN party leader after taking over from Le Pen, in February met the German ambassador, his party and a participant said.<\/p>\n
The embassy did not confirm the meeting.<\/p>\n
But a diplomatic source told AFP it was “the responsibility of a foreign mission to maintain contacts with all the political forces in the host country concerned”.<\/p>\n
Germany has long been among Israel’s staunchest allies, something Berlin has grounded in the country’s responsibility for the Holocaust.<\/p>\n
“Yes, they met in February,” a member of Bardella’s team said, seeking to present it as a routine meeting.<\/p>\n
He “meets many ambassadors as part of his duties as head of the RN party and as leader of a group in the European Parliament,” the person said.<\/p>\n
Bardella is head of the Patriots for Europe group, the EU legislature’s third-largest bloc that was co-founded in 2024 by former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban.<\/p>\n
– ‘Areas of convergence’ –<\/p>\n
The participant said the discussion between Bardella and the German ambassador made it possible to identify “areas of convergence” on several issues in France and neighbouring Germany.<\/p>\n
They focused in particular on “budgetary discipline” in both leading EU member states.<\/p>\n
The episode follows Le Pen last month meeting the Israeli ambassador for the first time.<\/p>\n
The embassy confirmed the meeting, with a diplomatic source adding that the ambassador “received all political parties” except from the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI).<\/p>\n
LFI has criticised Israel over the war in Gaza, and its leader Jean-Luc Melenchon — also a candidate next year — has been accused of making antisemitic comments.<\/p>\n
Before the meeting with the Israeli envoy, Le Pen had the previous day been seen meeting the Lebanese ambassador, who thanked her for her solidarity as his country sought a lasting ceasefire with neighbouring Israel.<\/p>\n
Both Le Pen and Bardella also met the US ambassador late last year.<\/p>\n
US ambassador Charles Kushner in December on X posted a picture of himself with them, saying he appreciated the chance to learn from them “about the RN’s economic and social agenda and their views on what lies ahead for France”.<\/p>\n
gbh\/ah\/as\/giv<\/p>\n
Connect with Us<\/p>\n
Want to Share Something with Our Team?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"France’s far-right leaders have met the ambassadors of Germany and Israel in recent months as their party, once…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,5],"class_list":{"0":"post-10949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-afp","9":"tag-germany"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}