The rise of Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) has caused widespread alarm, including in unexpected quarters such as Europe’s other far-right parties.
While Germany’s party enjoys record support at home, some of its closest ideological allies elsewhere in Europe are distancing themselves from it.
After Germany’s recent state elections, those tensions came to the fore again. Earlier this month, the AfD made a historic breakthrough in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, winning 43.8% of the vote, just three seats short of an outright majority. Last weekend’s elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin also saw a exodus from mainstream parties to fringe parties, particularly the AfD.
Several of the bloc’s far-right party leaders, including Geert Wilder of the Dutch Freedom Party, Viktor Orbán of Hungary’s Fidesz party and Santiago Abascal of Spain’s Vox party, gave congratulatory messages, hailing the AfD’s rise as “a great hope for Germany and Europe.”
But some of Europe’s biggest far-right parties, including those in France, Italy and Britain, have remained silent.
The French National Rally (RN), once one of the AfD’s closest partners, said even before the Saxony-Anhalt vote that new cooperation with the AfD was “not planned.”
For party leader Marine Le Pen, there are domestic as well as ideological calculations at work.
Under her leadership, the National Rally embraced a so-called “detox”, shifting the party from the overt xenophobia of her father Jean-Marie Le Pen’s government into the political mainstream.
She has also sought to move the party’s brand away from the stain of the Nazi past of its two founders. The anti-immigrant rhetoric is softer and open to mixed-race citizens who her father’s generation might not have welcomed as the “right kind” of French. Since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, she has used accusations of anti-Semitism as a powerful weapon in her rebranding.
The RN, formerly under the guise of the National Front, has long collaborated with the AfD in the European Parliament. However, comments by senior AfD officials downplaying the criminal role of Hitler’s SS militias in World War II and the emergence of a secret plan by the German party to expel people of foreign origin en masse have crossed a red line for the RN. The alliance with the AfD was at odds with the RN’s new image. In May 2024, French political parties severed their alliances and ties with Germany’s far-right forces.
The divisions were clear following the AfD’s recent successes, and the RN’s top leadership remained particularly silent. With the 2027 presidential election just around the corner, Marine Le Pen has the best chance of winning the Elysée Palace, perhaps a strategy to avoid negative backlash.
“We have serious problems, both in style and in content. We do not consider them to be our allies in Germany,” RN lawmaker Frank Alicio told TV channel LCI on September 6, the day of the Saxony-Anhalt state vote.
Compared to the RN, the AfD has made no effort to root out extremist groups despite its appeal to a wide range of voters, said Grégoire Rouss, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House think tank. The AfD rejects accusations of right-wing extremism, and the party’s co-leaders have previously said Germany’s domestic intelligence agency’s classification of it as an “extremist” group was an attempt to “distort democratic competition.”
“Unlike the National Assembly, which has worked hard to purge itself of morally corrupt elements, the AfD has not carried out such a purge,” Roos told CNN.
Loos said figures within the AfD also talk casually about the Nazi era, as if all of its history should not be “thrown in the trash”, another aspect that makes the party uncomfortable for many of its European compatriots.
But France’s more radical far-right Reconquist party, led by Eric Zemmour, welcomed the AfD’s victory in Saxony-Anhalt. Leading Reconquista lawmaker Sarah Cunafo called the results “historic” in an X-post on election night. “The peoples of Europe have shown great patience. Today they want to take their destiny back into their own hands. The whole continent is rising up,” she said.
In this respect, the AfD is not completely alone. This helped establish the European Group of Sovereign States in the European Parliament after being expelled from identity and democracy. Smaller, more isolated groups include nationalist parties such as the Reconquists, as well as the Restoration Movement in Bulgaria, the Fatherland Movement in Hungary, New Hope in Poland, and the Republic Movement in Slovakia.
Italy’s far-right brethren have also not embraced the AfD, and its leader, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, is instead pursuing a strategy of building influence within Europe’s political mainstream.
Her party belongs to the European Conservative and Reform group, which is more integrated into the institutional mainstream of the European Parliament than the AfD’s Sovereign States Europe group. The two parties have deep differences on foreign policy, with Meloni’s party supporting NATO and Ukraine, while the AfD opposes sending arms to Ukraine and wants sanctions against Russia lifted. Meloni called these differences “irreconcilable.”
Nigel Farage, leader of Britain’s far-right party Reform Britain, described the AfD as a “hybrid organization”.
Asked on a podcast with Axel Springer CEO Matthias Dopfner in April what the main difference between his party and the AfD was, Farage said: “I think it’s pro-Putin, but it’s hard to understand.” Relations between the AfD and some dictators have been “very difficult,” he added.
The AfD’s foreign policy positions make it an uncomfortable partner for many.
Although the party has conflicting currents over Germany’s relations with Russia and the United States, it stands out from other right-wing parties in Europe by supporting closer ties with Russia. It has also adopted strong anti-aid rhetoric regarding Ukraine, setting it apart from some, but not all, European populist parties.
Ruth believes the party is “very radical when it comes to Ukraine and Russia.” “When you listen to the AfD, you get the feeling that Russia is not invading Ukraine, Russia is not committing crimes in Ukraine and killing civilians every day.” Russia has repeatedly denied accusations that it targets civilians in Ukraine.
Furthermore, while parties such as France’s RN strive to sever ties with foreign powers such as Russia and China, the AfD does not. Last year, the AfD’s ties to China came into the spotlight after a former German party aide was found guilty of spying for China.
The AfD has also appealed for support in Washington. President Donald Trump celebrated his landslide victory in Saxony-Anhalt on social media, ending his message with the German translation of “MGGA!,” an acronym for “Make America Great Again.”
Elon Musk, a longtime defender of the AfD, also expressed his delight.
The AfD “has maintained strong ties with President Trump and the MAGA movement, which is becoming increasingly unpopular in France, as in many European countries,” Roos said.
If the AfD were to make significant gains in the German region, it would likely pursue strong nationalist policies, along with strengthening ties with Russia and lifting Russian oil and gas sanctions at the European level, Ruth said. But he noted that Germany’s foreign policy belongs to the chancellor’s office, which could limit sudden shifts even if support for the AfD’s position grows in the region.
He added that Germany’s democracy remains strong thanks to an independent judiciary and constitutional court designed to check political power.
AfD’s growing influence poses a dilemma for Europe’s far right. Ignoring the party could become even more complicated if it continues to gain popularity in Germany. But accepting this could come with political costs for far-right parties hoping to prove they can move from the political fringes to government.
